Support and healers

[Astralporing.1957]

@Sobx.1758

(a continuation to the previous post, which i didn;t include originally because i was already half asleep when i was writing it 😋)

If you want more specifics however, let's have a look at how the "group tactics meta" changed in the early times:

The first important thing to notice is that the early cRPG games were very, very crude in the combat representation. There was no 3d continuous combat map yet. We're talking here about either 2d grid (like in SSI's AD&D's based Golden Box titles), or even simpler stuff that pretty much treats the group as one and is not concerned about stuff like individual character's positions (Eye of the Beholder, Might and Magic and Wizardry series - where earliest of titles in the latter two series are basically text games with some graphics sprinkled in), and at best cares about the order of them on party list.

The typical tactics approach at the time in the games with the list-based "positioning" was to have melee characters at the top of the list, and range attackers further to the bottom. The games sort of assumed that the party is lined in that order, with the topmost characters being in the front and bottom characters at the end. This also generally defined the attack priority (of both sides).

In games with 2d combat grid (like SSI's ones) the tactics was a bit more complicated than that. Since the enemies could bypass the frontline from the sides, and range characters could attack pretty much anyone within range, it was important for melee characters to not only block the enemy approaches towards the backline but also get in melee range of potentially most annoying/dangerous enemies with range capabilities, to make them switch to melee instead.

Notice the general lack of aggro management in those games, and lack of singular tank role. At the same time, some specialization was already forming, with frontline generally consisting of melee classes with high defence and HPs, and backline formed by more fragile casters. DPS, for the most part, was considered to be everyone's business, though. Notice also, that the basis of combat gameplay was against groups of enemies, not individual bosses. Single boss encounters were rare, and usually resulted in extremely simplified tactics (as in "melee just mobs the boss together, boss generally does not move, and just uses melee attacks at those nearby and AoEs the whole group occasionally")

There are also some games (like mentioned in my previous post Wasteland) that didn't go the fantasy route, and as such parties were often severely lacking in the melee combatants category. In such cases there was no frontline that could bodyblock enemies at all.

Notice, that this approach pretty much was still true when games improved their combat representation. For example, Baldur's Gate, released in 1998, still pretty much followed it.

If that was all, it's likely we would never have seen Holy trinity in the form we currently know, and the present day MMORPGs would look very different from what we're used to. It's not those games however that were sipritual predecessors to MMORPGs. It was the MUDs that probably had much greater impact on current design.

MUDs (Multi User Dungeons) were a category of text-based multiplayer online games that was popular in between the 80's to late 90's. There were several "families" of those, with DikuMUD derivatives being probably the most prominent.

DikuMUD line was based on classic fantasy setting, and iconic classes lousely based on DnD - Warrior, Cleric, Thief and Mage (with further Diku derivatives adding their own variations on top of that). And if i called the early cRPG combat representation crude, it was still light years ahead of the "complexity" of it in the MUDs. Here, it got extremely simplified. Combat was taking place in a single location (called "room"). There was no party order, no individual positioning, nothing like that. Just a blob of players and blob of mobs assumed to be in the same spot together, where everyone was in range of everyone else. Each mob and each player had a single target for all their single target attacks, and all AoE attacks attacked the whole enemy group. Fights could happen against both groups and against individual enemies, but, for obvious reasons, players highly preverred many vs one fights.

MUDs weren't commercial products. They were a line of community products developed by hobbyists. For most mud admins developing their MUD was just a part time hobby. This had an impact on the complexity of the code. For example, the "aggro" code of the original Diku was extremely simple: mob aggroed on the first enemy it saw, or the first person that attacked it. Later a target switch option got added, but that one was pretty much totally random (and for the sake of avoiding too much chaos was by default set at a very low percentage chance of it happening). It was of course possible for individual developers to add more complicated systems to their MUD versions, and there were ways for zone creators to add special procedures to individual mobs that could accomplish that, but that generally wasn't being done. There were always way more important things to take care of (including frequent bugs and crashes that were common due to most active MUDs being, in practice, in state of continuous development) and devs were always short on time.

At the same time, due to the much bigger party sizes than in cRPG titles (In the one i happened to play at that time the standard group was 20 players), and the really simple combat system, the combat was generally based around attrition. Even normal mobs (not to mention zone bosses) were huge HP sponges, and damage flying both sizes was significant over the course of an encounter. So, healing was necessary. Additionally, it was a text-based game, where you generally saw only your own state, state of the enemy you had targeted, and state of that enemy's target. Checking other players required additional active effort on either the healer's or wounded players part (by examining specific player, or by said player reporting their state) which didn't exacly made things easy on healers. As such, it should be rather obvious that the idea of making sure a specific player gets targeted appeared very fast. Which was obviously immediately followed by idea of making this player as tough as possible, so they had a greater chance of surviving random unlucky bursts of damage long enough for healers (and buffers) to react. Thus the idea of a singular Tank was born.

The MUD impact on creation of holy trinity can be seen in original MMORPGs, btw. Ultima Online was more based on cRPG games, and didn't have the trinity, even in very crude form. Everquest however was pretty much a direct descendant of MUD approach (Toril/Sojourn MUD line, to be more specific), to the point that it was originally more known as a graphics MUD, rather than MMORPG, and it already started with the tank+healer group roles. WoW just took that design idea from Everquest, and went to perfect (and simplify) it further. And after that, of course, everyone just went and started to copy WoW design wherever possible, resulting in a massive homogenization of MMORPG design ideas.

So, in short, the current Holy Trinity model can be directly "blamed" on DikuMUDs and their extremely primitive combat system.

[Zaret.1450]

On 1/10/2023 at 8:42 AM, 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.

What do you mean when saying bad ai, the tanking mecanics? the overall boss mecanics?

Id like to know what youre talking about here and how would you change it, i havent played gw1, and so far i think gw2 is pretty well done, as for why there are roles, its just because players want to optimize, you could go all celestial, soldier etc, but when entering a fight celestials would, mostly, become low dps, low healing, tanks, some like fb might be great even then, but its more the class than the stats, soldier lowers the dmg and doesnt help self sustain that much, and any sustain choices do similar things, so you end up with 10 medium dps, decent survival at most, with bosses that can still oneshot thiefs or eles, or in wich mecanics and mobs just make too much pressure, now make those people run amok in the fight, noone heals nor buffs so no reason to stack, you get a caos, and overcomplicate things.

I have been teaching raids, and raiding, for id say quite a few years, and every time people go with those "inmortal" open world or wvw builds, wich suposedly are better at survival and self reliant, or you just leave them enter without taking roles, etc... well you usually use a heal scourge ambulance to hard carry them for an hour.

Dunno if what we have is the trinity per se or not but you can do almost anything on any class, thats enought for me.

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, zaswer.5246 said:

What do you mean when saying bad ai, the tanking mecanics? the overall boss mecanics?

And here i thought it has been explained well enough throughout the whole thread.

Short answer: both.

First let's look at tanking: Why do you think it does not work in PvP? If it was so smart of a tactics, it shoudl work there as well, right? The answer is of course that players are not so dumb to let enemy dictate who they should attack, especially when it means they are asked to attack enemy's strength while ignoring their weakness. Well, the PvE bosses are that dumb.

Second: the boss encounters nowadays are a well choreographed fight where almost nothing is left to chance. The whole boss behaviour is pretty much fully predictable, including the timing and patterns of attacks. After you learn it, the only surprise can come from other players. Again, it's also not something you'd ever see in PvP, because having predictable patterns that are easy for enemy to prepare for and to exploit against you is dumb.

Now, the ai is bad not because devs are bad at coding, but because they want bosses to be dumb, but it doesn't change the fact that it does make them dumb.

4 hours ago, zaswer.5246 said:

Id like to know what youre talking about here and how would you change it

I would not, i think it's perfectly fine. I mean, i want bosses to be dumb and things to be easy, so why would i want to complicate stuff more?

4 hours ago, zaswer.5246 said:

i havent played gw1, and so far i think gw2 is pretty well done, as for why there are roles, its just because players want to optimize, you could go all celestial, soldier etc, but when entering a fight celestials would, mostly, become low dps, low healing, tanks, some like fb might be great even then, but its more the class than the stats, soldier lowers the dmg and doesnt help self sustain that much, and any sustain choices do similar things, so you end up with 10 medium dps, decent survival at most, with bosses that can still oneshot thiefs or eles, or in wich mecanics and mobs just make too much pressure, now make those people run amok in the fight, noone heals nor buffs so no reason to stack, you get a caos, and overcomplicate things.

Yes. Non-trinity models do make fights harder on everyone. And more challenging. I'd rather not see that happen. And you are also right that GW2's "build diversity" is illusionary at best, because huge majority of potential builds are just plain bad, and i'd gladly see that significantly simplified as well, so "buildcraft" would no longer be the biggest noob trap there is.

 

[Sansar.1302]

14 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And here i thought it has been explained well enough throughout the whole thread.

Short answer: both.

First let's look at tanking: Why do you think it does not work in PvP? If it was so smart of a tactics, it shoudl work there as well, right? The answer is of course that players are not so dumb to let enemy dictate who they should attack, especially when it means they are asked to attack enemy's strength while ignoring their weakness. Well, the PvE bosses are that dumb.

Second: the boss encounters nowadays are a well choreographed fight where almost nothing is left to chance. The whole boss behaviour is pretty much fully predictable, including the timing and patterns of attacks. After you learn it, the only surprise can come from other players. Again, it's also not something you'd ever see in PvP, because having predictable patterns that are easy for enemy to prepare for and to exploit against you is dumb.

Now, the ai is bad not because devs are bad at coding, but because they want bosses to be dumb, but it doesn't change the fact that it does make them dumb.

I would not, i think it's perfectly fine. I mean, i want bosses to be dumb and things to be easy, so why would i want to complicate stuff more?

Yes. Non-trinity models do make fights harder on everyone. And more challenging. I'd rather not see that happen. And you are also right that GW2's "build diversity" is illusionary at best, because huge majority of potential builds are just plain bad, and i'd gladly see that significantly simplified as well, so "buildcraft" would no longer be the biggest noob trap there is.

 

I think that boss fights should not be something you could memorise, it needs active reactment to be fun.

(not that i am that possition but those who play alot of raids/strikes have a big advantage as they know EXACTLY how the enconter  goes )

 

Boss fights should not be made easyer because you know the fight, boss fights should be won by you mastering youre class and fast and efficient reaction.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Sansar.1302
bad spelling

[Doctor Hide.6345]

46 minutes ago, Sansar.1302 said:

I think that boss fights should not be something you could memorise, it needs active reactment to be fun.

(not that i am that possition but those who play alot of raids/strikes have a big advantage as they know EXACTLY how the enconter  goes )

 

Boss fights should not be made easyer because you know the fight, boss fights should be won by you mastering youre class and fast and efficient reaction.

 

     There is a problem with that though. You are not taking into account latency and such. Sometimes the internet sucks, so your reaction time won't be fast. That is normally not a thing a lot of people can control at times. With known patterns for the most part, you can at least predict somewhat what the boss will do ahead of time if your net starts acting up which is a good thing. 

     So, easier boss fights is a good thing for the overall player because it means predictability of actions which means more success due to outside factors.

[Dadnir.5038]

On 1/13/2023 at 2:19 AM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

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.

You're talking about what? 3-4 month in the life of the game?

In the vanilla game guardian were popular only for pug/casual groups due to the simple fact that it farted light fields and it hindered might generation.

For most of the vanilla end game content, Elementalist was The "meta". It provided your party with more dps than any other profession, gave free evade, could generate all the boons needed and even heal your group. It was the golden age of combo and conjured weapon which is elementalist's expertise (now, both of these no longer really shine in PvE).

In second place in the vanilla game meta, behind elementalist, you would have had thief. It took a bit of time for the player base to recognize it's usefulness but it's ability to stealth your whole group for extended period of time finally brought him to this spot.

Third would be warrior, but only for the "laziest" parties, thanks to phallanx strength.

Fourth was mesmer for reflect and group port which made some speed run slightly faster.

 

Now, if your reference was CoF, yes, amongst casual groups, warriors and guardians used to be popular there along with a nimble mesmer.

 

As for condi builds, they marginally worked. Both warrior and mesmer could make use of condi build to solo end game content. Though, again for soloing, elementalist was at the top, followed by warrior. The competition for solo speed run used to be a tough fight between elementalist and warrior.

 

On 1/13/2023 at 2:19 AM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

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.

Indeed healer existed. Amongst them necromancer was curiously quite good. Unfortunately tests revealed that they were inefficient outside of inexperienced parties. In experienced groups everything was destroyed in under 20s (which wasn't long enough for a healer to put it's weight into the fight) while the healers were basically cutting themself from any of the precious offensive boon support output and damage output.

It wasn't just "assumed", it was tested and tried, a "meta dps group" simply didn't die because the encounters were to short for them to take enough damage for them to die. Most of the dungeon path were completed with an average time ranging between 5 and 10 minutes. For most of the paths it was: run, pull the boss into the corner, buff while it come, burst the boss, run,... etc. Rince and repeat. You didn't stoped or worried for your health pool, there was absolutely no room for healing or slow ramping dps. When the potentially deadly mechanisms were coming you just used an evade skill and it was fine.

Taking a healer in such group would have just been carrying dead weight. In the vanilla game the best defense truly was offense. Nowadays, there exist stat sets that are a lot more convenient, condi builds no longer hinder each other and the focus of the meta is on longer encounters that allow both healer and slow ramping dps to shine.

On 1/13/2023 at 2:19 AM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

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.

This era quickly died down.

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 1/13/2023 at 9:29 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

And here i thought it has been explained well enough throughout the whole thread.

Short answer: both.

First let's look at tanking: Why do you think it does not work in PvP? If it was so smart of a tactics, it shoudl work there as well, right? The answer is of course that players are not so dumb to let enemy dictate who they should attack, especially when it means they are asked to attack enemy's strength while ignoring their weakness. Well, the PvE bosses are that dumb.

Second: the boss encounters nowadays are a well choreographed fight where almost nothing is left to chance. The whole boss behaviour is pretty much fully predictable, including the timing and patterns of attacks. After you learn it, the only surprise can come from other players. Again, it's also not something you'd ever see in PvP, because having predictable patterns that are easy for enemy to prepare for and to exploit against you is dumb.

Now, the ai is bad not because devs are bad at coding, but because they want bosses to be dumb, but it doesn't change the fact that it does make them dumb.

I would not, i think it's perfectly fine. I mean, i want bosses to be dumb and things to be easy, so why would i want to complicate stuff more?

Yes. Non-trinity models do make fights harder on everyone. And more challenging. I'd rather not see that happen. And you are also right that GW2's "build diversity" is illusionary at best, because huge majority of potential builds are just plain bad, and i'd gladly see that significantly simplified as well, so "buildcraft" would no longer be the biggest noob trap there is.

 

Part of your problem is the base assumption that predictable behavior is undesirable.  Enemies queueing attacks at random does not make encounter design more interesting.  It simply limits what developers can do when designing encounters.  It's the same mistake ANet made in daring to be different with "non-trinity".  It was apparently only later that they realized taking away the few ways in which players can interact with the game world in a combat scenario probably wasn't such a hot idea after all.

[AliamRationem.5172]

15 hours ago, Sansar.1302 said:

I think that boss fights should not be something you could memorise, it needs active reactment to be fun.

(not that i am that possition but those who play alot of raids/strikes have a big advantage as they know EXACTLY how the enconter  goes )

 

Boss fights should not be made easyer because you know the fight, boss fights should be won by you mastering youre class and fast and efficient reaction.

The problem with your logic is that these are not mutually exclusive scenarios.  Do you not currently have to react with proper timing to boss animations even though there is a predictable cadence to the encounter overall?  You wouldn't be adding anything to the design of the encounter with this.  Only taking away, making the designs less interesting.

[Astralporing.1957]

3 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Part of your problem is the base assumption that predictable behavior is undesirable. 

Again, where i said it's undesirable? I said it's easier. And i also said that i do like things being easier.

3 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Enemies queueing attacks at random does not make encounter design more interesting.  It simply limits what developers can do when designing encounters.  It's the same mistake ANet made in daring to be different with "non-trinity".  It was apparently only later that they realized taking away the few ways in which players can interact with the game world in a combat scenario probably wasn't such a hot idea after all.

Not really. It does not limit things, it just makes things harder on players, because everyone needs to be on their toes (and react faster), and coordination gets way more complicated. And it does make designing the encounters harder for the devs, because they need to be far better at predicting what might happen, while also having a much more narrower margin for balancing the encounter.

In short, i do understand why both devs and many players like the current classic raid design, (and i also personally quite like it). I just think it's funny that so many players seem to either not notice, or try to deny that it's something that has always been designed to decrease the challenge.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 minute ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Again, where i said it's undesirable? I said it's easier. And i also said that i do like things being easier.

Not really. It does not limit things, it just makes things harder on players, because everyone needs to be on their toes (and react faster), and coordination gets way more complicated. And it does make designing the encounters harder for the devs, because they need to be far better at predicting what might happen, while also having a much more narrower margin for balancing the encounter.

In short, i do understand why both devs and many players like the current classic raid design, (and i also personally quite like it). I just think it's funny that so many players seem to either not notice, or try to deny that it's something that has always been designed to decrease the challenge.

See my previous response to Sansar.1302.

[Astralporing.1957]

54 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

See my previous response to Sansar.1302.

Yeah, saw that. And i happen to disagree. 

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Do you not currently have to react with proper timing to boss animations even though there is a predictable cadence to the encounter overall?

Are you seriously saying that both cases are the same, and are equally difficult? That "reacting" to an attack you knew will be happening around that time is the same as having to react to the same attack, but when you have no idea when it might happen? Because i do not see how those two things can even be considered to be similar, much less the same.

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

You wouldn't be adding anything to the design of the encounter with this.  Only taking away, making the designs less interesting.

Nah, it is the exact opposite. It's the predictability that removes the element of surprise from each encounter, and makes the design less interesting (while also making it safer and easier to the players).

Edited January 14, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[AliamRationem.5172]

34 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yeah, saw that. And i happen to disagree. 

Are you seriously saying that both cases are the same, and are equally difficult? That "reacting" to an attack you knew will be happening around that time is the same as having to react to the same attack, but when you have no idea when it might happen? Because i do not see how those two things can even be considered to be similar, much less the same.

Nah, it is the exact opposite. It's the predictability that removes the element of surprise from each encounter, and makes the design less interesting (while also making it safer and easier to the players).

No.  As I explained in the post you vaguely disagreed with, both scenarios have attacks that you cannot predict within any useful time frame and instead must react to with precise timing (e.g. standard attack animations, orange circles/cones, etc.).  So, like I said, you'd only be removing something more (i.e. mechanics, phases, etc.) to leave us with something less.

[Mell.4873]

This trinity issue has come up before and if we did return to the past we would end up in a worse state. Roles are not restrictive the reality is they open up lots of combinations of different classes. When we lacked a so called trinity all anyone played was literally Warrior and you would be kicked from groups if you were not one. 

The other thing to note is there really isn't a trinity like others have pointed out. The strongest role per say in this game is a Support DPS since they can reach the same or higher DPS numbers. Honestly at this point everyone can bring a secondary role to any group/squad.

To add to my post, I have been recommending for a long time that the Vindicator player who want to heal just do it and not tell people; Hybrid classes are the future. For the longest time I have recommended this to Virtuoso players too.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Mell.4873

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 1/14/2023 at 5:06 PM, Mell.4873 said:

This trinity issue has come up before and if we did return to the past we would end up in a worse state. Roles are not restrictive the reality is they open up lots of combinations of different classes. When we lacked a so called trinity all anyone played was literally Warrior and you would be kicked from groups if you were not one. 

The other thing to note is there really isn't a trinity like others have pointed out. The strongest role per say in this game is a Support DPS since they can reach the same or higher DPS numbers. Honestly at this point everyone can bring a secondary role to any group/squad.

To add to my post, I have been recommending for a long time that the Vindicator player who want to heal just do it and not tell people; Hybrid classes are the future. For the longest time I have recommended this to Virtuoso players too.

The issue you describe is overlap.  If all classes overlap the same basic functions and none bring anything unique to the group, then you inevitably end up with certain classes being favored because they're simply better at performing this function.  Why bring class X when class Y does the same thing but better?

The workaround for this in a role-less system is to provide unique buffs to each class so that there is an advantage to bringing multiple classes rather than just the ones that are the best at dealing damage.  The downside to this is that it tends to feel contrived, as if your only reason for being in the group is the unique buff itself.

By comparison, having distinct roles directly addresses the issue of overlap as a DPS role cannot compete directly with a healer or a tank.  As opposed to providing a passive unique buff to the group, a defined role is built around that role.  For example, a tank isn't just a DPS that passively soaks damage.  It performs a unique function (i.e. control of enemy positioning/movement in an encounter) and its skillset is designed around that. 

Tanks can compete with tanks and one can be a better choice than the other, but even then you have less direct competition for that role.  You can also find creative ways to make one tank situationally better than another.  For example, you could have a tank that is better at dealing with a particular damage type (e.g. physical damage vs. magical damage).  Games like WoW and FFXIV do this.  This helps to further reduce the impact of overlap.

The trinity is simply a reflection of the few basic ways in which players are able to interact with a PvE game.  There are only 2 entities involved in these interactions: the AI and the players.  That leaves only 3 basic ways in which players may interact with the game, which are: player-to-player (support), player-to-AI (DPS), and AI-to-player (tanking). 

Any interactions you can imagine fall into these three broad categories.  There's no way around it other than restricting the ability of players to make these interactions (i.e. the GW2 model), which adds nothing to encounter design, only taking away from it and leads to the problems outlined above (as well as plenty of other issues not relating to class overlap!).

  

 

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The workaround for this in a role-less system is to provide unique buffs to each class so that there is an advantage to bringing multiple classes rather than just the ones that are the best at dealing damage.  The downside to this is that it tends to feel contrived, as if your only reason for being in the group is the unique buff itself.

Again same problem, when we had this before.  When Raid group was formed you ended up with the same banner Warrior everytime. I don't think it's fair that a Warrior has to play a particular way due to unique buff the provide. 

If classes overlap to much there might be a best in slot for a particular role but I have never seen a group ask for a particular type of class for a role (except HB but mostly for fractals). Unless you are speed running most of the time people priorities buffs rather than build/classes.

The one exception is healing (like HB) but I believe very soon we will have hybrid Healers like Vindicator and Virtuoso being a staples in groups. People are already asking for it so I don't see why it won't be mandatory to have a DPS/Healer hybrid.

Most of the other things you said I agree with. 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Mell.4873

[AliamRationem.5172]

37 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Again same problem, when we had this before.  When Raid group was formed you ended up with the same banner Warrior everytime. I don't think it's fair that a Warrior has to play a particular way due to unique buff the provide. 

If classes overlap to much there might be a best in slot for a particular role but I have never seen a group ask for a particular type of class for a role (except HB but mostly for fractals). Unless you are speed running most of the time people priorities buffs rather than build/classes.

The one exception is healing (like HB) but I believe very soon we will have hybrid Healers like Vindicator and Virtuoso being a staples in groups. People are already asking for it so I don't see why it won't be mandatory to have a DPS/Healer hybrid.

Most of the other things you said I agree with. 

 

To clarify, I wasn't proposing this as a solution to the problem, but pointing out that this was the path GW2 took and later abandoned as they had instead embraced trinity elements with dedicated support and healer roles.