Support and healers

[Sansar.1302]

Wish Guild Wars 2 returned to no support/healers philosophy

 

Guild Wars 2 where orinaly marketed as a no trinety style mmo and now it have slowly have became one.

 

Think most boons and healing should be personal only.

 

Have lost all intrest in grp play because of this. 

 

Now all i do is some wvw solo roaming or very very few times i go to pve a little bit solo open world.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

      Well, the fact of the matter is you can't really have a good balanced endgame without having some kind of healing and support. It makes balancing stuff 10x harder, and most people flock to it anyways as a part of human nature in some way or another for group roles. There is a reason the holy trinity works almost all the time in all the games. It is one of the most effective strategies to taking hard stuff down.

     So GW2 going this route was inevitable. Anet just did it their way ahead of time to avoid the traditional holy trinity look which does work for the most part. But yeah, that is just the truth of the matter. Doesn't matter if some people like it or not.

[Astralporing.1957]

11 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

There is a reason the holy trinity works almost all the time in all the games. It is one of the most effective strategies to taking hard stuff down.

Yes, there's a reason why it works. That reason is called "bad mob AI". Problem is, it's no longer a limitation nowadays. GW1 mobs were already smart enough to make holy trinity ineffective. In modern games it works only because developers allow it, making their mobs intentionally stupid. And they do so, because it lets less skilled players participate in content without making it too obvious that the "challenge" is heavily rigged in players' favour. Also, like you said, it makes battle encounter design and balance easier for devs.

So, basically, holy trinity persists because it makes things easier for both players and developers, while still preserving the illusion of challenge.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Doctor Hide.6345]

7 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, there's a reason why it works. That reason is called "bad mob AI". Problem is, it's no longer a limitation nowadays. GW1 mobs were already smart enough to make holy trinity ineffective. In modern games it works only because developers allow it, making their mobs intentionally stupid. And they do so, because it lets less skilled players participate in content without making it too obvious that the "challenge" is heavily rigged in players' favour.

 

Well, that reasoning may or may not be correct. Doesn't mean that way doesn't bring in the most players which means more money for the game. Even if it was "bad  mob AI to help players", I think most people are for it. If someone wants to fight something super challenging, that is why PvP exists tbh. I personally don't care for it because I don't like intentionally hurting other people. Doesn't matter if game or not, but I can see why people like it with the challenge aspect.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Doctor Hide.6345

[Nymeria.1653]

Technically no trinity means not having pre-established roles in a class, that means that in theory everyone can choose what to play (more damage, more support and so on) regardless of the class they are playing. Otherwise there would be only one class to play if everyone are the same just with different animations and concepts, but that would be really an omologation for me.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Wish Guild Wars 2 returned to no support/healers philosophy

It never had a "no support/healers" philosophy. The  difference is that, in the early days, the most effective way to go through the content in PvE was simply to follow the logic: "The best defense is offense".

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Guild Wars 2 where orinaly marketed as a no trinety style mmo and now it have slowly have became one.

Nope it wasn't. It was marketed as a game where you do not need a specific profession to fill a specific role. The meta defined by players lead you to believe this philosophy changed but, all in all, if you want you can fill the roles of a support/healer, a tank or a dps with any profession. Some have "more" to offer which make them meta but, for example, if you want to spport/heal with a core thief that's totally possible since 2012.

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Think most boons and healing should be personal only.

Which would would make group content no different from solo content and lead to more individualism and elitism. Basically you're asking for something that's not a "mmo".

1 hour ago, Sansar.1302 said:

Have lost all intrest in grp play because of this.

Now all i do is some wvw solo roaming or very very few times i go to pve a little bit solo open world.

It's entierely natural with the way you think the game should be. In a way you're isolating yourself for the sake of your ideals.

[Astralporing.1957]

54 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

 

Well, that reasoning may or may not be correct. Doesn't mean that way doesn't bring in the most players which means more money for the game. Even if it was "bad  mob AI to help players", I think most people are for it. If some someone wants to fight something super challenging, that is why PvP exists tbh. I personally don't care for it because I don't like intentionally hurting other people. Doesn't matter if game or not, but I can see why people like it with the challenge aspect.

Oh, i agree, most current MMORPG players indeed prefer it that way. Because there's practically no non-trinity MMORPGs on the market at the moment - and that's for the most part "thanks" to WoW's massive success at some point, and everyone trying to imitate it in at least some way (even if not always consciously and intentionally). This conditioned a lot of players to think of trinity as if it were a smart tactic (when in truth it's anything but), and to think it as something intrinsically tied to MMORPG (which it's not).

It's like strategy games once - there was a time when "strategy game" automatically meant a turn-based game. And then RTS model happened and people suddenly noticed that turn-based was not the only way to do it. We're simply not at this point in MMORPG evolution yet, we're still stuck into an old model era due to player and dev inertia that prevents players from even imagining something different, and prevents devs from trying something novel (but potentialy risky), instead of sticking to no longer necessary, aged, but tried and safe approach.

Now, of course, such different, non-trinity models would probably be aimed at different groups of players than the trinity one - just like turn-based strategy titles and RTS ones appeal to different target groups. Whether such groups would be bigger or smaller, or how much overlap might there be, is hard to say without actually seeing a well-designed non-trinity system in action. Notice, though, that what we're talking about is mostly important only in high-tiered content. Casuals (so, players that constitute huge majority of MMORPG playerbase) are far less likely to be affected, and are probably far more interested in aestethic/playstyle distinctiveness of classes than in one based on roles.

And about my earlier reasoning "being or not being correct"... there's a reason why trinity model did not exist in pen and paper RPGs - not even in DnD from which the classic class-based design (and classes being more or less specialized in some directions) comes from. Why it appeared in first cRPGs. And why it does not work in PvP modes in trinity-based MMORPGs  even though those modes use the very same classes PvE modes do.

47 minutes ago, Nymeria.1653 said:

Technically no trinity means not having pre-established roles in a class, that means that in theory everyone can choose what to play (more damage, more support and so on) regardless of the class they are playing. Otherwise there would be only one class to play if everyone are the same just with different animations and concepts, but that would be really an omologation for me.

Nah, gw2 still does a good imitation of the trinity model (at least on boss fights) while not having pre-established roles. The core of trinity model is player capability to manage mob aggro. Without it, you can't have tanks. And without tanks, monospecialization goes out of the window, because everyone now has to invest at least a bit into self-preservation. That's why (as mentioned above) holy trinity does not really work in PvP modes even in games with pre-established, hardcoded class roles.

In short, you can have a trinity model even in game without roles pre-established by class selection (or even in game with no classes at all). It's also possible for trinity model to not work in a game with distinct classes with hardcoded pre-established roles.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Doctor Hide.6345]

7 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Oh, i agree, most current MMORPG players indeed prefer it that way. Because there's practically no non-trinity MMORPGs on the market at the moment - and that's for the most part "thanks" to WoW's massive success at some point, and everyone trying to imitate it in at least some way (even if not always consciously and intentionally). This conditioned a lot of players to think of trinity as if it were a smart tactic (when in truth it's anything but), and to think it as something intrinsically tied to MMORPG (which it's not).

It's like strategy games once - there was a time when "strategy game" automatically meant a turn-based game. And then RTS model happened and people suddenly noticed that turn-based was not the only way to do it. We're simply not at this point in MMORPG evolution yet, we're still stuck into an old model era due to player and dev inertia that prevents players from even imagining something different, and prevents devs from trying something novel (but potentialy risky), instead of sticking to no longer necessary, aged, but tried and safe approach.

And about my earlier reasoning "being or not being correct"... there's a reason why trinity model did not exist in pen and paper RPGs - not even in DnD from which the classic class-based design (and classes being more or less specialized in some directions) comes from. Why it appeared in first cRPGs. And why it does not work in PvP modes in trinity-based MMORPGs  even though those modes use the very same classes PvE modes do.

 

True. I can see your line of reasoning with the DnD PnP start of well the traditional class fantasy stuff we have now not having the holy trinity. To be honest, my mind kind of skipped that second step(first step being LOTR and fantasy books in general inspiring it), so I agree with that reasoning in that the mob AI problems of the past kind of set in motion the current mob AI we have currently for the most part.

[Chyro.1462]

I really enjoy playing heal/support.

 

If it was removed, I would lose all interest in the game 😞

[yoni.7015]

54 minutes ago, Chyro.1462 said:

I really enjoy playing heal/support.

 

 

Yeah same. I usually play hfb in fractals, strikes and WvW. 

Edited January 10, 2023 by yoni.7015

[Einsof.1457]

5 warriors was the best dungeon group at launch. I don't want to go back to that. 

[Gehenna.3625]

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

It never had a "no support/healers" philosophy. The  difference is that, in the early days, the most effective way to go through the content in PvE was simply to follow the logic: "The best defense is offense".

I would say that the original set up of the game was that all classes were on a slider that moved between DPS and support. If you focus on one you lose the other. At least to a significant degree. And that's because when the game released there was no group content outside of dungeons, group events and world bosses. And you're right, offense was the best way to go through content. Berserker stats were king. 

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Nope it wasn't. It was marketed as a game where you do not need a specific profession to fill a specific role. The meta defined by players lead you to believe this philosophy changed but, all in all, if you want you can fill the roles of a support/healer, a tank or a dps with any profession. Some have "more" to offer which make them meta but, for example, if you want to spport/heal with a core thief that's totally possible since 2012.

I do remember them saying that it wasn't a trinity game and it showed because all classes were really in the same boat. But over time, specific roles did appear after all. And ironically there are more of them than in a trinity game. Though I think the one that limits the trinity games, the tank, isn't used here a lot. So effectively you can do most group content without a tank. 

The downside of this support thing is that we ended up with boon balls. For me there's nothing more ridiculous than just huddling together to be more effective because of boons.

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Which would would make group content no different from solo content and lead to more individualism and elitism. Basically you're asking for something that's not a "mmo".

Well, I do agree here but the problem for me is the 100% upkeep. I don't want boons to be all personal but I think the 100% upkeep of boons has lead to huddling together, especially in WvW as boonballs (or clouds I think). That's just an egregious side effect of the boon system.

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

It's entierely natural with the way you think the game should be. In a way you're isolating yourself for the sake of your ideals.

Then again, not a whole lot of people play raids, strikes or fractals. Most players do play solo most of the time if not all the time. I think there are just better ways to deal with the complaints the OP has.

[Sobx.1758]

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, there's a reason why it works. That reason is called "bad mob AI". Problem is, it's no longer a limitation nowadays. GW1 mobs were already smart enough to make holy trinity ineffective. In modern games it works only because developers allow it, making their mobs intentionally stupid. And they do so, because it lets less skilled players participate in content without making it too obvious that the "challenge" is heavily rigged in players' favour. Also, like you said, it makes battle encounter design and balance easier for devs.

So, basically, holy trinity persists because it makes things easier for both players and developers, while still preserving the illusion of challenge.

It's not really about "bad mob AI", the trinity is a design choice and it always worked specifically because the devs wanted it to work. That type of group gameplay gives it a more coherent stucture and lets the players feel they're actual "part of the group" instead of simply "happening to be next to other players, each of which tries to solo anyways".

[Astralporing.1957]

23 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

It's not really about "bad mob AI", the trinity is a design choice and it always worked specifically because the devs wanted it to work.

Nowadays, yes, but the origin of trinity system is very much tied to attempts to exploit bad mob AI, and developers of old cRPGs initially tried to not make it so easy on players. It's only after a time that they've noticed how it made their work easier, and decided to go with the flow.

23 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

That type of group gameplay gives it a more coherent stucture and lets the players feel they're actual "part of the group" instead of simply "happening to be next to other players, each of which tries to solo anyways".

That's a big misconception. No trinity does not mean there are no roles/functions in the group, or that there's no group coordination required. It just means that those roles/coordination are not based around the classic trinity model. In fact, trinity model has been designed specifically to lessen coordination requirements and pressure on each individual group member.

Your response, btw, is a great example of how conditioned many MMORPG players are nowadays to be tricked by the illusion of the complexity and challenge trinity system was made to be. I mean, we all know how great a believer in challenging content you are (or say you are), and yet here you are defending a system that was designed to make things easier on individual players.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Nowadays, yes, but the origin of trinity system is very much tied to attempts to exploit bad mob AI, and developers of old cRPGs initially tried to not make it so easy on players. It's only after a time that they've noticed how it made their work easier, and decided to go with the flow.

Even "the origin of trinity system" had rather easy way for mobs to appear smarter by changing what they prioritise, so it was still about the intended gameplay design.

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

That's a big misconception. No trinity does not mean there are no roles/functions in the group, or that there's no group coordination required. It just means that those roles/coordination are not based around the classic trinity model. In fact, trinity model has been designed specifically to lessen coordination requirements and pressure on each individual group member.

From what I understand, all you wrote here is "it's a big misconception because it is". So no, it is not a misconception because that kind of gameplay clearly lets the players as the part of the group with their own responsibilities intead of acting like a bunch of solo players just happening to be next to each other.

 

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Your response, btw, is a great example of how conditioned many MMORPG players are nowadays to be tricked by the illusion of the complexity and challenge trinity system was made to be. I mean, we all know how great a believer in challenging content you are (or say you are), and yet here you are defending a system that was designed to make things easier on individual players.

What a terrible bait with no substance behind it.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Even "the origin of trinity system" had rather easy way for mobs to appear smarter by changing what they prioritise, so it was still about the intended gameplay design.

Like i said, originally devs of those games did try to do that. And yes, setting priorities was one of the ways to do it. Unfortunately, you seem to not remember that, AI at that time was dumb enough that it was really easy to manipulate those priotities, often to truly hilarious effects. It was harder than the current dev-backed design, but was entirely possible. And it's exactly the fact that devs did try those tricks even after the first crude model of what eventually became holy trinity already started to emerge shows, that it was not dev-intended approach to the problem.

(Also, if you happen to be too young to remember, one of the first cases of true Holy Trinity appeared in MUDs, and those generally had "AI" so primitive that there was no real capability for mobs to become significantly smarter, and only very crude way to "prioritize" that was extremely easy to either completely circumvent or exploit).

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

From what I understand, all you wrote here is "it's a big misconception because it is". So no, it is not a misconception because that kind of gameplay clearly lets the players as the part of the group with their own responsibilities intead of acting like a bunch of solo players just happening to be next to each other.

Your misconception is in assuming that trinity is the only way to make players "part of the group with their own responsibilities", and that every non-trinity system automatically means everyone  is "acting like a bunch of solo players just happening to be next to each other"

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

What a terrible bait with no substance behind it.

Well, seeing your repeated attempts to deny the history and goals behind the holy trinity system, and the completely unsubstantiated claims that Holy Trinity is the only way to "make players feel like part of the group" is good enough proof for me.

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Like i said, originally devs of those games did try to do that. And yes, setting priorities was one of the ways to do it. Unfortunately, you seem to not remember that, AI at that time was dumb enough that it was really easy to manipulate those priotities, often to truly hilarious effects. It was harder than the current dev-backed design, but was entirely possible. And it's exactly the fact that devs did try those tricks even after the first crude model of what eventually became holy trinity already started to emerge shows, that it was not dev-intended approach to the problem.

You don't know what "originally devs of those games try to do", you're guessing or basing it on a random article you saw where they wrote what matches your opinion. If you think ai is dumb because it targets tankiest person (pretty sure you were the one who wrote something like that, but who knows, maybe I'm confusing you with someone else), but if that's the case it's really easy to make the ai "smarter", it's just changing the priority/numbers of generated aggro. Chances are though that if bosses keep inteligently dismantling parties, there won't be much of an encounter other than a bunch of solo headless chickens running around. The goal of group content is to play together and kind of solve the encounter, so that's the design decision, not some coincidence or inability to make it differently.

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Your misconception is in assuming that trinity is the only way to make players "part of the group with their own responsibilities", and that every non-trinity system automatically means everyone  is "acting like a bunch of solo players just happening to be next to each other"

I didn't exactly say it's the only way, but until now nothing you said points at having a significant group gameplay as opposed to having a bad "everyone for themselves" type of gameplay where players just happen to be next to each other and try to separately survive. It's not "my misconceptions", as much as it's your lack of specifics. I'll respond to specifics when you start giving any, no worries -but until then I'm not going to build arguments for you just to talk with myself. So... hopefully in the next response you can have something more specific instead of "well some other stuff exist!".

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Well, seeing your repeated attempts to deny the history and goals behind the holy trinity system, and the completely unsubstantiated claims that Holy Trinity is the only way to "make players feel like part of the group" is good enough proof for me.

Or maybe stop pretending I said something I didn't. I said it's a design choice and it always worked specifically because the devs wanted it to work. That type of group gameplay gives it a more coherent stucture and lets the players feel they're actual "part of the group" instead of simply "happening to be next to other players, each of which tries to solo anyways".

That's in no way the same as saying "it's the only way to do it", while on the other hand the only thing you're doing in your posts is the equivalent of repeating "trinity bad, players think they're good, buy they bad!". You gave 0 specific alternatives, your preferences or, really, anything gameplay related. What do you think that is a proof of? If you have something that you think is a better alternative then maybe you should start typing, not sure what is this weird stalling supposed to bring here unless you really have nothing more than that to say. For now that's the only thing you're proving here.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

On 1/10/2023 at 7:41 AM, Sansar.1302 said:

Wish Guild Wars 2 returned to no support/healers philosophy
Guild Wars 2 where orinaly marketed as a no trinety style mmo and now it have slowly have became one.Think most boons and healing should be personal only.
Have lost all intrest in grp play because of this.
Now all i do is some wvw solo roaming or very very few times i go to pve a little bit solo open world

Just grab a couple of like-minded people and go do strikes/raids your way.
Most professions and specs have very solid self-boon capability and as long as they go bruiser builds instead of full dps glass cannons healers aren't mandatory.

Speaking of which, you could still grab yourself a scourge healer - the one healer that has next to no boons to share with party and his healing is weak. Instead he gives beefy barriers and resses like a champ.

[Astralporing.1957]

3 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You don't know what "originally devs of those games try to do", you're guessing or basing it on a random article you saw where they wrote what matches your opinion.

No. I just happen to be old enough to actually remember the times before Holy Trinity was created, was there when it came into being, and thus know how and why it happened.

3 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

If you think ai is dumb because it targets tankiest person (pretty sure you were the one who wrote something like that, but who knows, maybe I'm confusing you with someone else), but if that's the case it's really easy to make the ai "smarter", it's just changing the priority/numbers of generated aggro.

You have a bad idea about how the trinity was created. It's not that Ai was so dumb to target the tankiest person. It was just that it was so crude that it was easy to either predict who will get targeted, or to make AI select specific target. Once that was noticed, it could be manipulated. From this, the next obvious step was to "beef up" those that would be targeted, and make them (and the whole party) act in a way that that minimized risk of that target changing to someone unprepared. It just so happened that the most tanky classes then were those with both high armor and lot of HP, which, in games based roughly on DnD (or similar) class model, were usually warriors and warrior derivatives. Notice, btw, that in many of those games Cleric type classes were originally far more used as buffers and debuffers  (with often not so insignificant offence capabilities) and most healing happened in-between fights, not during them. It was only when due to dev reactions to emergence of tank role fights in games started to turn into attrition combat that clerics had to turn into primarily healers and everything else far second.

3 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Chances are though that if bosses keep inteligently dismantling parties, there won't be much of an encounter other than a bunch of solo headless chickens running around. The goal of group content is to play together and kind of solve the encounter, so that's the design decision, not some coincidence or inability to make it differently.

Yes, when bosses act smartly, players also have to act smart. And all of them, not just only the few with key roles, like in Holy Trinity system. The puzzle that the encounter is suddenly becomes so much harder to solve. In such case, if players will turn into "bunch of solo headless chickens running around" a smart opponent will simply wipe the floor with them.

Having the roles be clear, and boss behaviour be more predictable is making the "encounter solution" so much easier to puzzle out.

Hint: look at PvP. If you put against each other two groups, in which one is organized and one is a bunch of people doing it solo, the former will win with the latter 100% of the time unless there's some absolutely massive difference in individual skill level. If you put two organized groups against each other, it will become a contest of organization and skill between them. If you were to make it so they could attack only the designated "tank" target in the opposing group however, it would suddenly turn into a contest between dps and healing levels of both groups. Organization and skill would become important only as much as they would impact those two factors. It would immensely simplify things. In fact, in most cases you'd probably be able to know who will win before the encounter even started just looking at group gear and composition.

That's the Trinity system. It's a design that turns the fight from combat challenge into puzzle, where "challenge" lies in solving the puzzle, but once that is done, challenge disappears and the combat itself becomes trivial. In the end, combat itself becomes a smoke screen that is supposed to divert your attention from the fact that in this puzzle it's the preparations that matter, and once those are well done, the fight itself becomes pretty much irrelevant.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

46 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No. I just happen to be old enough to actually remember the times before Holy Trinity was created, was there when it came into being, and thus know how and why it happened.

"Was there", where? In the dev's room/head? Note the contant vagueness in what you write, in addition to the good ol' "well, I'm old enough [...and assume who you're talking to isn't]" in place of actually writing anything specific.

46 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You have a bad idea about how the trinity was created. It's not that Ai was so dumb to target the tankiest person. It was just that it was so crude that it was easy to either predict who will get targeted, or to make AI select specific target. Once that was noticed, it could be manipulated. From this, the next obvious step was to "beef up" those that would be targeted, and make them (and the whole party) act in a way that that minimized risk of that target changing to someone unprepared. It just so happened that the most tanky classes then were those with both high armor and lot of HP, which, in games based roughly on DnD (or similar) class model, were usually warriors and warrior derivatives. Notice, btw, that in many of those games Cleric type classes were originally far more used as buffers and debuffers  (with often not so insignificant offence capabilities) and most healing happened in-between fights, not during them. It was only when due to dev reactions to emergence of tank role fights in games started to turn into attrition combat that clerics had to turn into primarily healers and everything else far second.

I have a bad idea about how the trinity was created? What is my idea about it then? What I said there about the tank is basically doing a guesswork on what you might think based on what I remember from you writing about it (and, again, at this point I'm not 100% sure it was you -but still close enough to being sure it was). And that guess work is done because, again, you offer 0 specifics and just opt for convenient vagueness throughout your posts in this thread. What you're writing here now forgets(?) about different types/weights of aggro generation bnetween the games, including healing and damage. If it's getting simplified, it's not "because of ai", but because of the design choice.

46 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, when bosses act smartly, players also have to act smart. And all of them, not just only the few with key roles, like in Holy Trinity system. The puzzle that the encounter is suddenly becomes so much harder to solve. In such case, if players will turn into "bunch of solo headless chickens running around" a smart opponent will simply wipe the floor with them.

Having the roles be clear, and boss behaviour be more predictable is making the "encounter solution" so much easier to puzzle out.

Hint: look at PvP. If you put against each other two groups, in which one is organized and one is a bunch of people doing it solo, the former will win with the latter 100% of the time unless there's some absolutely massive difference in individual skill level. If you put two organized groups against each other, it will become a contest of organization and skill between them. If you were to make it so they could attack only the designated "tank" target in the opposing group however, it would suddenly turn into a contest between dps and healing levels of both groups. Organization and skill would become important only as much as they would impact those two factors. It would immensely simplify things. In fact, in most cases you'd probably be able to know who will win before the encounter even started just looking at group gear and composition.

That's the Trinity system. It's a design that turns the fight from combat challenge into puzzle, where "challenge" lies in solving the puzzle, but once that is done, challenge disappears and the combat itself becomes trivial. In the end, combat itself becomes a smoke screen that is supposed to divert your attention from the fact that in this puzzle it's the preparations that matter, and once those are well done, the fight itself becomes pretty much irrelevant.

Um... convenient dodge is convenient:

4 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Or maybe stop pretending I said something I didn't. I said it's a design choice and it always worked specifically because the devs wanted it to work. That type of group gameplay gives it a more coherent stucture and lets the players feel they're actual "part of the group" instead of simply "happening to be next to other players, each of which tries to solo anyways".

That's in no way the same as saying "it's the only way to do it", while on the other hand the only thing you're doing in your posts is the equivalent of repeating "trinity bad, players think they're good, buy they bad!". You gave 0 specific alternatives, your preferences or, really, anything gameplay related. What do you think that is a proof of? If you have something that you think is a better alternative then maybe you should start typing, not sure what is this weird stalling supposed to bring here unless you really have nothing more than that to say. For now that's the only thing you're proving here.

At this point, that seems to be enough of a proof for me that these vague responses is all you have to say about it. Hint: I know how pvp works and it has nothing to do with it, nor does it offer any specifics about your previous claims. I also know what a trinity system is and I don't need it explained (nor does it respond to anything I wrote in the previous post). Meanwhile you're ""informing"" me about solving the encounter, which is literally what I wrote myself. It starts to look like you're -for some weird reason- attempting to reiterite what I already wrote back to me instead of clearing up what I asked to be cleared up.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

"Was there", where? In the dev's room/head?

When Holy Trinity was being created and made to work by players without any help of devs in that direction. When it was being made to work despite devs trying to make those "complicated" aggro systems you mentioned. And when some devs decided to go along it and started to include mechanics that directly supported this.

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Note the contant vagueness in what you write, in addition to the good ol' "well, I'm old enough [...and assume who you're talking to isn't]" in place of actually writing anything specific.

I'm already at far more specific level than you are. Especially considering not only lack of specifics, but actual misinformations in your posts. Which i have pointed out, mnore than once.

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I have a bad idea about how the trinity was created? What is my idea about it then?

Want me to quote it to you? Here you are:

On 1/10/2023 at 2:25 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

It's not really about "bad mob AI", the trinity is a design choice and it always worked specifically because the devs wanted it to work.

Notice the "always". You claimed that it was something that was from the beginning a dev idea. It wasn't. In the beginning it was something that was being used despite lack of support or devs trying to not make it work.

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

What I said there about the tank is basically doing a guesswork on what you might think based on what I remember from you writing about it (and, again, at this point I'm not 100% sure it was you -but still close enough to being sure it was).

Yeah, that's whole you. You are "close enough to being sure". Too bad you were not close enough to being right though. I don't think this (and other stuff you believe is right, but you never bothered to actually check) makes for great support of your arguments, but you do you.

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

And that guess work is done because, again, you offer 0 specifics and just opt for convenient vagueness throughout your posts in this thread. What you're writing here now forgets(?) about different types/weights of aggro generation bnetween the games, including healing and damage.

I'm not forgetting anything. Sure, there were a lot of aggro systems used throughout years, from very simple ones in the beginning (starting from just "first hit" and "closest target" initially,  to more complicated later on), but, first, like i said, in the early years those systems weren't exactly complex, and were extremely easy to manipulate

The more complex systems you speak of? When those started to appear (including better pathing, to prevent players from simply bodyblocking enemies) Holy Trinity already existed and was considered staple in some types of games (including MUDs that were MMORPG precursors).

It's exactly your mentions of stuff like that that makes me think you aren't old enough to remember how it was developing. Stuff you mention, while existed for a loong time, is actually much younger than the initial history of Holy Trinity.

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

If it's getting simplified, it's not "because of ai", but because of the design choice.

Yes. Now. But not in the beginning, when Holy Trinity first came into being. So, nowadays, yes, the "bad ai" that enables it is a design choice, but that design choice is a response to idea that was created by players at some point in history as a method to exploit primitive design of some really old games. So old, that you apparently don't even remember them. In short, Holy Trinity persists because devs actively allow and encourage it, but it was created not because of that, but exactly "because of bad ai".

Notice, btw, that while the concept of trinity of roles is much older, the actual term of Holy Trinity started to appear around the time of EQ (and initially meant something different - it was being used in reference to the 3 classes that were considered to be most "essential" - Warrior, Cleric and Enchanter). The use of this term for the tank/healer/dps triad was mostly tied to the WoW community that ended up spreading it around.

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

16 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

When Holy Trinity was being created and made to work by players without any help of devs in that direction. When it was being made to work despite devs trying to make those "complicated" aggro systems you mentioned. And when some devs decided to go along it and started to include mechanics that directly supported this.

For the Xth time: specifics? Why all you operate here with are these vague stories without mentioning anything specific?

Even if we decide to blindly go with what you're saying (although you, once again like a clock, didn't give ANYTHING specific about what you're saying) and the initial emergence of the setup were incdental or "came up with by the players", the subsequential releases of the system is a design choice and does nothing to go against what I said in the previous posts.

16 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I'm already at far more specific level than you are. Especially considering not only lack of specifics, but actual misinformations in your posts. Which i have pointed out, mnore than once.

How are you specific in anything? All you've said in your posts is "maybe you're not old enough to remember, but...", "I'm old enough to remember that...", the above "it was created and made work by players..." and similar, without giving ANY specific and instead using these vague meaningless stories. Don't you understand what "being specific means"? IF you know when it emerged, give the details of the game, time, names, devs, ANYTHING. Meanwhile you're giving NOTHING. This is by far not "being more specific than I am", since you're not being specific at all.

On the other hand, when you say you're being more specific than I am, what exactly do you mean? What do you want me to be more specific about? (which is a separate part of this post that you can respond to without dropping how you've not once given any specific in your previous posts or in the quotes above)

16 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Want me to quote it to you? Here you are:

Notice the "always". You claimed that it was something that was from the beginning a dev idea. It wasn't. In the beginning it was something that was being used despite lack of support or devs trying to not make it work.

Cool, show how it was not intended by the devs. Again (or rather still): you luck any specifics for your claims here. On the other hand: if the devs didn't want/support trinity design, pretty much all (or almost all) it took is leave supportive skills as selfcast only -yes, even as the simple ruleset in the early rpgs. Are you suggesting this solution -or similar depending on the actual situation/game/design- was too hard for anyone to come up with?

16 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yeah, that's whole you. You are "close enough to being sure". Too bad you were not close enough to being right though. I don't think this (and other stuff you believe is right, but you never bothered to actually check) makes for great support of your arguments, but you do you.

Yeah, "it's all me", as I said I wouldn't need to do guesswork based on your past posts if you bothered with being specific even once withing your last few posts. For now you still don't have anything specific supporting your claims. But I guess "I'm old enough to rememba" is what you consider as a detailed description of the past.

Not only that, but even in the initial post where I said it, I specifically noted (and that's the exact part you've quoted and responded to) that: "If you think ai is dumb because it targets tankiest person (pretty sure you were the one who wrote something like that, but who knows, maybe I'm confusing you with someone else)" -so it should be clear that this is not somehow "my opinion", but instead a response to what I wrote on this forum and I think it probably was you while noting I'm not sure if it was. All the initial response to that warranted was you informing me "it wasn't me" or "I didn't say that" and that's all. Meanwhile you've used it as a fuel to claim this is now somehow my opinion followed with sarcastic "that's all you" remark in this post. Good job?

Duh, I went for a quick "trinity" search (after skipping results from this thread, it was the 2nd or 3rd post that showed up) and you were indeed talking about bosses attacking toughest opponents not making sense:

On 10/1/2022 at 1:13 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Do you think that bosses always picking for attack the toughest opponent they are the least likely to kill just because they "taunt" them has more sense? I mean, that would make all bosses morons - even those that theoretically should be anything but.

So it's not like I somehow made it up by myself for whatever reason you might think I would do it, but w/e suits you, not like that's the main point here anyways. The main point is: don't want me to guess? Start writing/listing specifics instead of vague "I totally remember" stories with 0 actual details in them. I don't know how this is so hard to understand.

16 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I'm not forgetting anything. Sure, there were a lot of aggro systems used throughout years, from very simple ones in the beginning (starting from just "first hit" and "closest target" initially,  to more complicated later on), but, first, like i said, in the early years those systems weren't exactly complex, and were extremely easy to manipulate

The more complex systems you speak of? When those started to appear (including better pathing, to prevent players from simply bodyblocking enemies) Holy Trinity already existed and was considered staple in some types of games (including MUDs that were MMORPG precursors).

It's exactly your mentions of stuff like that that makes me think you aren't old enough to remember how it was developing. Stuff you mention, while existed for a loong time, is actually much younger than the initial history of Holy Trinity.

Yes. Now. But not in the beginning, when Holy Trinity first came into being. So, nowadays, yes, the "bad ai" that enables it is a design choice, but that design choice is a response to idea that was created by players at some point in history as a method to exploit primitive design of some really old games. So old, that you apparently don't even remember them. In short, Holy Trinity persists because devs actively allow and encourage it, but it was created not because of that, but exactly "because of bad ai".

Notice, btw, that while the concept of trinity of roles is much older, the actual term of Holy Trinity started to appear around the time of EQ (and initially meant something different - it was being used in reference to the 3 classes that were considered to be most "essential" - Warrior, Cleric and Enchanter). The use of this term for the tank/healer/dps triad was mostly tied to the WoW community that ended up spreading it around.

No, not now (and what is "now"? This year? 10 years? 20 years? 30? Which moment was the cut-off you're talking about here? I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt here and do some guesswork you don't actually mean some very recent now, since that would just be completely and rather obviously wrong, we've been able to have a more complicated aggro behaviors for quite a while now), it's a design choice and was a design choice. Your claims about it being a thing because bad ai are false. Also still 0 specifics in this whole post, but at least(?) you continue with your a terrible guesswork about my age. Hit me with that "no u" equivalent of a response when you're the one claiming you know exactly what, how and when devs did and though and we're done I guess, because -again- at this point it's rather clear you're just "winging it".

 

Ah, wait, lets not forget about what you've completely dodged in the previous post:

On 1/11/2023 at 6:53 PM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Well, seeing your repeated attempts to deny the history and goals behind the holy trinity system, and the completely unsubstantiated claims that Holy Trinity is the only way to "make players feel like part of the group" is good enough proof for me.

Your claim about me somehow saying "it was the only way to do it" being made up aside, you still didn't give any details about what system you'd like to see instead.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

For the Xth time: specifics? Why all you operate here with are these vague stories without mentioning anything specific?

What, you want me to point you to specific games and specific people for a process that took 10-15 years (give or take) to happen?

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Even if we decide to blindly go with what you're saying (although you, once again like a clock, didn't give ANYTHING specific about what you're saying) and the initial emergence of the setup were incdental or "came up with by the players", the subsequential releases of the system is a design choice and does nothing to go against what I said in the previous posts.

Yes, subsequential releases of the system are a design choice. Here we are in full agreement. Devs realized that players liked it that way, and that it made devs work easier, and from that moment on it became a completely intended design. I never said anything else. All i responded to was your claim that it has always been a design choice, which simply is not true.

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

On the other hand: if the devs didn't want/support trinity design, pretty much all (or almost all) it took is leave supportive skills as selfcast only -yes, even as the simple ruleset in the early rpgs. Are you suggesting this solution -or similar depending on the actual situation/game/design- was too hard for anyone to come up with?

Sure, it could be done that way. That would require completely abandoning RPG genre roots however - remember, those were created by pen and paper RPGs, which, at that time, were mostly dominated by DnD. Perhaps it might have been different had cRPG/MUDs started to appear much later, after the emergence of World of Darkness, but they weren't. They appeared when RPG was mostly associated with high fantasy, and the most common fantasy RPG archetypes were warrior, cleric, thief and mage.

It's not like other games, with different approaches, didn't exist - but they generally went in different directions that those that later formed the basis on which MMORPGs were built (one such example is the original Wasteland, which indeed avoided the holy trinity model).

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Not only that, but even in the initial post where I said it, I specifically noted (and that's the exact part you've quoted and responded to) that: "If you think ai is dumb because it targets tankiest person (pretty sure you were the one who wrote something like that, but who knows, maybe I'm confusing you with someone else)" -so it should be clear that this is not somehow "my opinion", but instead a response to what I wrote on this forum and I think it probably was you while noting I'm not sure if it was.

Reading with comprehension, please. I did not comment about toughness-based aggro. I commented that mob behaviour where mob tries to kill only those opponents that are hardest to kill is dumb. Regardless of whether it's a result of bad AI or game design decisions.

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

No, not now (and what is "now"? This year? 10 years? 20 years? 30? Which moment was the cut-off you're talking about here?

Well, If we're talking about Holy Trinity origin, we're talking here about even older times than that. The emergence was 80's and 90's. By the time EQ was made computational capabilities and game complexity was already at a much higher level, where other options could have been pursued, but by then tank and healer roles were already pretty much solid (and acknowledged by developers). After that it took a while still to arrive at what we call Holy Trinity now, but by then it was no longer a process driven by players, but something that got taken over by developers.

[crosknight.3041]

On 1/10/2023 at 1:35 AM, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

      Well, the fact of the matter is you can't really have a good balanced endgame without having some kind of healing and support.

agree'd.
remember how core game dungeons were just "zerker only" dps braindead sprints. Fractals embody the current gw2 group dynamics perfectly and even in raids/strikes the healer is pulling double duty as tank (since they can have minstrels armor, they have the highest toughness while still very effectively filling the healer role)
also personal bias, currently 90% of my strike/raid/fractal playtime is on my healer FB or HAM. i like support heals

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Yeah, it was so great running around only in Berserker gear, Guardians and Warriors being the favored class of any group due to their ability to absorb damage while full glass, and there only being one role: DPS. Not to mention that condition builds just basically didn't work at all.

 

Currently DPS is still 60% of the group (80% if you count boon supports), and wears mostly the same gear..

 

By the way, I'm going to reveal to you a secret. Healers existed in core (like Ele), and were almost as good as now, its just that no one played them because it was assumed that going all damage was more efficient in every scenario. It wasn't powercreep that revealed to us the truth, it was players doing tests, writing software to perform mass calculations, and so on, that showed us many assumptions about the game were wrong.

 

For example, I remember when crit capping was viewed as foolish, when anyone wearing Assassin's gear was looked down upon as "not knowing what they're doing", when it was eventually discovered that crit capping is the single most important thing you can do in this game.

 

I'd rather not go back to the era of "wiping ten times is better than having a healer", where waypoint-zerging became such a common tactic they had to disable WPs in combat.

 

The game wasn't better, players were just dumb.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508