Break the Trinity System Please

True Support Jobs would serve this game so well.

Bard, Dancer, Time Mage, mmm.

The premise behind a True Support is just exciting.

What do you all think?

+1
Agreed.

IRL it takes all types to make the world work smoothly. Some people like to play the hero and seek fame & title others are just happy to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

imo support roles can be more fun; having to keep an eye on the pulse of the party is exciting

Either you'll get a broken game or people pressuring others to play specific classes/get certain cross skills

The trinity system wasn't designed by game developers, it was designed by players. As long as "Make the boss's HP go to 0 before yours does" and "bosses attack specific, nonrandom players" are ideas that exist in a game, the game's meta will migrate toward a trinity system, or will force certain support classes to be in a party.

The trinity makes sense: Imagine we are in a pre-WoW world, where you can allocate your stat points freely. You want the most damage going to the boss as possible, so you put all of your stats in Strength. Your party of 4 goes out to fight the boss, and you do a ton of damage, but not fast enough that the boss dies.

So one of your party members says, "Hey, why don't I just put points into Defense, and take this enmity-generating skill, and then I can survive while you guys deal the damage?" So you go back out, and you survive a little longer, but even though he has points in Defense, your party member dies because your party is now outputting less damage.

So a second party member says, "Alright, why don't I take these healing spells, so I can heal Mr. Defense, and then you guys can deal as much damage as you can?" Lo and behold, you're at the trinity. One tank, one healer, two DPS.

The reason it's so hard to break it is because any "support role" is just to enhance the trinity. Anything that boosts your attack power is enhancing the DPS. Anything boosting your defense is enhancing the tank. Anything debuffing the enemy's attack is enhancing the tank, and anything debuffing the enemy's defense is enhancing the DPS.

In order for a support role to be viable, it has to enhance the abilities of your party members at pretty close to exactly the same magnitude of your lost DPS (because you just can't do it without a healer or a tank, without some massive defense buffs, which would totally imbalance the game). Any higher, and parties quickly become, "[tank][tank][healer][healer][dps][dps][dps][<specific support class>]," and that kind of job obligation is exactly what FFXIV has always (rightly) striven against.

Do I think that support roles could exist in FFXIV? Absolutely, but only because it does an incredible job of making each class play differently. Playing PLD and then switching to WAR doesn't just change your animations and damage/enmity values, it actually makes you completely relearn how to play the game. And when you do learn, you find yourself in the exact same position; you find out that the classes are, in fact, completely balanced. Every other role in the game shares this balance, and it's that mastery of understanding how to balance classes while providing a totally unique experience to each job that gives me faith that SE will eventually introduce a class whose main focus is in managing buffs and debuffs.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Either you'll get a broken game or people pressuring others to play specific classes/get certain cross skills

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If you let someone make you play a job that you don't want to, that's your issue, not a problem with having more role variety. And everyone uses the exact same cross class skills for each job already. I am failing to see your point.

To be honest I think Bard (currently implemented) is as close to a support as we are going to see, however; I think it could be tuned a bit more, allowing for more variety such as melee (dancer) or caster (Red Mage) yes I know, Red mage uses swords. But let's face it, Red Mage's best attributes are En/Bar spells and the ability to use healing and damage dealing spells. their melee dps will never beat a drg or mnk, but their spells are at least unique enough to make it worth having.

I would not mind the addition of support-based jobs. I have fond memories of basically being a supporter RDM in FFXI many long moons ago. That being said, I cannot really see them being added into the game. I think what they may do, if anything, is give Bards and healers more incentive/spells to perform more supporting tasks.

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Originally Posted by Toodles

True Support Jobs would serve this game so well.

Bard, Dancer, Time Mage, mmm.

The premise behind a True Support is just exciting.

What do you all think?

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If true support is anything like BRD or RDM played in FFXI, no thanks. That is the height of boring/no skill play. Buff > Buff > Buff > Debuff > Debuff > Buff > "WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP TRYING TO MELEE" > etc

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Originally Posted by Hurlstone

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Actually, I do recall Yoshida going on record to say that they did want to bring more Support jobs into FFXIV. I remember because that is what I really want to play. The trouble is that some people automatically assume Support = Healer when it's not. The closest jobs to Support in this game right now are, interestingly enough, Bard and Ninja. Bard is supposed to be, like, THE Support job, but somewhere in development, it did a Fusion Dance with the Ranger job and now it's a shadow of what it's truly supposed to be. Ninjas seem to have borrowed one or two Dancer abilities, but one or two abilities does not a Support job make.

My fingers are crossed for a de-fusion of Ranger and Bard, the introduction of Dancer as a branch from Rogue, or the introduction of a new support job a la DRK using any of the myriad of support jobs in Final Fantasy history, like Time Mage, Mediator, Mystic Knight, or something else.

No.

Go play GW2.

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Originally Posted by Evtrai

No.

Go play GW2.

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Wrong "break the Trinity" topic...

I'd rather they keep the Holy Trinity in the game. =x

Heard of the abomination known as GW2? Terrible. I think nothing can top the trinity.

Thus I must express my complete opposition to OP's idea, in hopes that it will not come to fruition.

Rift tried to break the Trinity model, There were a number of Support specs that could be used and a group wouldn't form without one. Which led to people flagging themselves as support even when they were not in order to get a faster queue.

But the reason it took so long to fill that slot is because in the minds of the majority of MMO players, if its not doing LEET DEEPS its not worth playing.

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Originally Posted by Kyroc

If you let someone make you play a job that you don't want to, that's your issue, not a problem with having more role variety.

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Peer pressure in the context of progression is a real thing. And people will use it for easy invites because no one likes to play support. It's a lose-lose for everyone except people that don't seem to grasp the concept of class balance and party synergy and why the fourth role has broken more MMOs than helped (if any).

As I've said in the past, there's a reason developers ended up rolling aspects of "support" and "mezzer" into the trinity roles. It gives the trinity roles depth while limiting the number of roles people don't want to do.

PS: And in case you're wondering, no game has had support massively out-populate tanks, heals and DPS. The closest thing was Lineage II's bladedancer, and even that was designed as a DPS with buffs that could be instantly cast on the group and was popular because dual wielding swords was cool.

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Originally Posted by Evtrai

No.

Go play GW2.

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Originally Posted by Gextiv

Heard of the abomination known as GW2? Terrible. I think nothing can top the trinity.

Thus I must express my complete opposition to OP's idea, in hopes that it will not come to fruition.

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You totally missed the point. He wants to "break" the Trinity by adding a fourth role to it, that is support.

He doesn't want to totally remove the system like in GW2.

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Originally Posted by IzumiYuki

You totally missed the point. He wants to "break" the Trinity by adding a fourth role to it, that is support.

He doesn't want to totally remove the system like in GW2.

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Which just creates a 4th slot that must be filled, and usually the trinity reaserts itself as the "true support class" casts it's handful of buffs/debuffs and then gets relegated to backup/off healer or gimped DPS until it's time to refresh the buffs. I remember being a BRD in XI, cast my two DPS songs, Cast my Mage Ballads... Now shut up and cast cure until it's time to cast songs again, and don't you dare try to melee

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Originally Posted by Pandastirfry

Which just creates a 4th slot that must be filled, and usually the trinity reaserts itself as the "true support class" casts it's handful of buffs/debuffs and then gets relegated to backup/off healer or gimped DPS until it's time to refresh the buffs. I remember being a BRD in XI, cast my two DPS songs, Cast my Mage Ballads... Now shut up and cast cure until it's time to cast songs again, and don't you dare try to melee

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Well, to be fair a support class or mage hitting a mob with their weapon in that game was actually designed to be detrimental....for some reason. Since mobs don't gain TP per hit and use actions at an increased rate because of that in this game that particular bit would not be a factor. I feel like they could make a much more engaging support class than BRD or RDM were (or the semi-supports like SMN and COR) with a decent variety of shorter buffs and reduced damage dealing and/or healing capabilities.

Given that content in this game is essentially 4 or 8 person groups though, could a support job adequately depose a DPS in 4-man content? If they can, then aren't they greatly overpowered in 8-man content? I could see them fitting them into 8-man content easily enough and balancing that properly, but when you have to remove ~40% of your damage for support (in 4-man content assuming tank is 20% and DPS are each 40%) then that support has to pick up that 40% somehow or else nobody's going to bother.

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

I think it could be tuned a bit more,

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Bard should be a support class, but the ballads feel like more of a joke nod at support than real support. They drain mp that isn't in vast supply to start with and provide what feels like minimal help at all. Sure, they may get you out of a bind when a healer runs low on mp and needs to keep casting. Tuning the bard to have more useful songs would give them a better feeling of support without hurting their DPS too bad. and yes they do take a DPS hit when using a ballad, so even there the ballads points to being a true support job gimped. I think giving the bard ballads that could up attack speed for the party, decrease enmity for near by members or such things and not have them drain mp rapidly, but drain based on enmity blocked/each attack used under influence etc.
after all, what job type is best suited to support than a ranged job?

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

If true support is anything like BRD or RDM played in FFXI, no thanks. That is the height of boring/no skill play. Buff > Buff > Buff > Debuff > Debuff > Buff > "WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP TRYING TO MELEE" > etc

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I don't think you ever touched XI if you threw RDM into the "true support" category lol.

I don't think a support role is too necessary. Just give more support abilities to healers.

Even is support role is a good idea, it wouldnt get rid of the trinity system, thing is, we dont really have buffer/debuffers. Protect and Stoneskin dont make a buffer class, Bio and Virus dont make a debuffer. I think a class specialized on support and debuffing skills can come and give us a fourth role, but will still be limited and be like that.

As much as i love build theory crafting and all, i preffer honest lack of variety over illusion of free will. Take GW2 for example, all classes can do "everything" and therefore there is no "roles" since everyone should be able to tank/deal damage/heal other or self... This failed misserably, with the evasion mechanics, most parties went full on max DPS and just outDPSed bosses everywhere since they also can heal and take a few shots, and the down mechanic even if is cool, can be abused to beyond limits doing this, making a group of glasscannons suddenly immortals.

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Originally Posted by LeCard

Bard should be a support class, but the ballads feel like more of a joke nod at support than real support. They drain mp that isn't in vast supply to start with and provide what feels like minimal help at all. Sure, they may get you out of a bind when a healer runs low on mp and needs to keep casting. snip

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Ironically, i got most of my currently 236 Commendations while leveling my BRD, and i got those by snapping my Tp/MP songs on and off, timing the Song uptime to one of my many (I feel for this reason) Damage increasing skills.

It drives me insane to see BRDs sing one song for their entire MP bar and then be like, well i cant sing anymore. Pewpewpew

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

If true support is anything like BRD or RDM played in FFXI, no thanks. That is the height of boring/no skill play. Buff > Buff > Buff > Debuff > Debuff > Buff > "WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP TRYING TO MELEE" > etc

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You and me played different games in reference to rdm, brd maby in hnm fights I would give you the it is boring as all get out.

RDM was a healer, Support, Tank, Crowd Control and Debuff class for endgame XI. Only thing it could not do well endgame was nuke and melee.

Brd was a refresh whore in party play in XI. I will say that. This one I actually agree with you on. But outside hnms they were main pullers, secondary crowd control, main support, back up healer. (They were one of the most active jobs in a party)

Solo play brd was garbage through and through it required a party to function. RDM was a god amoung classes capable of killing world bosses that were designed for alliances solo. (well took hours to do but still doable)

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Ironically, i got most of my currently 236 Commendations while leveling my BRD, and i got those by snapping my Tp/MP songs on and off, timing the Song uptime to one of my many (I feel for this reason) Damage increasing skills.

It drives me insane to see BRDs sing one song for their entire MP bar and then be like, well i cant sing anymore. Pewpewpew

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Drives me crazy too, but that is part of the problem. The ballads don't offer an easily noticeable bonuses so the average bard will pop one and leave it. The fact that the class is called "Bard" should mean that the ballads play more into the role of the job than a side boost that the best bards will make great use of while average/poor bards will kind of make use of them.

With the system now, you earned those commendations by being top tier at your job but anyone below that probably wont ever realize how to do that. (and if they do they probably wont really be able to optimize their use of it)

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

I don't think you ever touched XI if you threw RDM into the "true support" category.

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And I'll question your playing it if you actually refute the fact that the playerbase used it as nothing but pure support. The five cats soloing bosses and thus making everyone else hate us notwithstanding, of course (AKA "WTF y ar u aksing for melee buffs & fixes for ur job?!?!?!? go solo sky gods trollololol").

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Originally Posted by LeCard

Bard should be a support class, but the ballads feel like more of a joke nod at support than real support.

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Our bard is a DPS with utility cooldowns. Much like an enhancement shaman but requiring even more situational awareness since BRDs are supposed to know when to turn on the songs and when to turn off to go back to their full DPS potential. We got a much better deal out of the proceedings with things as they are.

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Originally Posted by Nutz

Given that content in this game is essentially 4 or 8 person groups though, could a support job adequately depose a DPS in 4-man content? If they can, then aren't they greatly overpowered in 8-man content? I could see them fitting them into 8-man content easily enough and balancing that properly, but when you have to remove ~40% of your damage for support (in 4-man content assuming tank is 20% and DPS are each 40%) then that support has to pick up that 40% somehow or else nobody's going to bother.

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The thread on the "other systems" subforums pretty much covers this. Support ends up being either worthless or mandatory for any hard content. You can't measure this by percentages to contribution because there are other factors that need to be taken into account. Including but not limited to class synergy and encounter design. Not to mention that no amount of buffs and debuffs are going to make up for that portion of missing damage. Buffs that end up making up that missing damage end up being overpowered, same thing for debuffs and so the cycle continues.

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Originally Posted by LeCard

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I think the Songs just need more visual aura when its active on people. Its incredibly noticeable on my Monk when i get the TP song, it literally suspends my TP expenditure (MY SS is too high, so i end up spending TP at an insane rate)
Likewise on my WHM, Having a Ballad active forces me to full MP no matter how hard i dump spells. Its just that if you don't look for the icon ... You don't see that its active, even if you can see the effects. I Advocate the spell effect being accompanied by a visual aura on affected people, not too obnoxious, but big enough to be seen, so when you see it, You KNOW a BRD is singing. (Personally i want the musical notes from the King Mog Trial >_>)
Also, I'm ok with a system that rewards proper use of skills. On the other hand, if they made it too powerful, BRDs would be "must haves" for all content. I think its in a good spot power wise, just needs visual help :D

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Originally Posted by Kyroc

If you let someone make you play a job that you don't want to, that's your issue, not a problem with having more role variety. And everyone uses the exact same cross class skills for each job already. I am failing to see your point.

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Raid Leader: Kyroc! Switch to NewSupportClass!
Kyroc: No, I wanna stay as THM to do uber DPS!
Raid Leader: Kyroc, you're out of the raid. Donald, switch to NewSupportClass! You get Kyroc's place.
Donald: Okay, boss!

See how it works?

True support classes wouldn't work who wants to really stand there and cast buffs and you can get that if a class like this were introduced it would be the least playable class in the game. It would have to be dps/support like bard.

I'm hoping 3.0 will slowly do away with this. I'm really hoping a support job is released, hence why we got ninja now.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

I think the Songs just need more visual aura when its active on people.
Likewise on my WHM, Having a Ballad active forces me to full MP no matter how hard i dump spells. Its just that if you don't look for the icon ... You don't see that its active, even if you can see the effects. I Advocate the spell effect being accompanied by a visual aura on affected people, not too obnoxious, but big enough to be seen, so when you see it, You KNOW a BRD is singing.
Also, I'm ok with a system that rewards proper use of skills. I think its in a good spot power wise, just needs visual help :D

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unless something has changed since I touched my bard (admittedly it's been a while) the bard can't see others TP only mp. so the bard isn't really able to tell that that song it helping anyone but themselves unless your on voice or something telling the bard. Definitely the visual, very much.

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Originally Posted by LeCard

unless something has changed since I touched my bard (admittedly it's been a while) the bard can't see others TP only mp. so the bard isn't really able to tell that that song it helping anyone but themselves unless your on voice or something telling the bard. Definitely the visual, very much.

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Well, I''l admit here that i've kinda memorized the speed at which my TP Jobs blow TP, and use that knowledge to time my songs for others. I also encourage people to make call outs if they need the song. I do like to tell them to just input gibberish lol, it actually works. Its hard to mistake when a DRG suddenly screams UJIGPUIYFVHLGPO, its a bit quicker to throw that out than a polite and legible song request. >_>

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Well, I''l admit here that i've kinda memorized the speed at which my TP Jobs blow TP, and use that knowledge to time my songs for others. I also encourage people to make call outs if they need the song. I do like to tell them to just input gibberish lol, it actually works. Its hard to mistake when a DRG suddenly screams UJIGPUIYFVHLGPO, its a bit quicker to throw that out than a polite and legible song request. >_>

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I'm stealing that if/when my brd sees combat again. (been on a big crafter/gather kick lately). Though it would be nice if they could just tack that third bar to the party menu, who knows why it isn't there.

Also, how in all that is bardly did you memorize time like that? my sense of time is no where near accurate enough to manage that XD

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Originally Posted by LeCard

I'm stealing that if/when my brd sees combat again. (been on a big crafter/gather kick lately). Though it would be nice if they could just tack that third bar to the party menu, who knows why it isn't there.

Also, how in all that is bardly did you memorize time like that? my sense of time is no where near accurate enough to manage that XD

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I spent an ungodly amount of time in Titan HM DF on those Jobs for Relics ... And most of them were before the server speed ups in regards to location checking. So many fun times were had getting killed by phantom Weights and Asslides.

I'm all for SE adding more jobs with support abilities. Pure support, not so much. Thats coming from someone who loved mezzer, bard and Dirge in Everquest. Pure support only works in large scaled parties as for balance, in small scale parties a pure support cannot out weigh taking a DPS over them. Rift 5 peep dungeons, things went a lot faster/smoother going 3 DPS, tank, healer over 2 DPS, support, tank, healer.

Not to mention, if they increased party size and balanced dungeons for 5/10 peep parties, the game would be better served making the additional as another DPS to ocunter the disparity between, not just the number of players going DPS, butthe disparity between the choice of DPS jobs compared to tank and healers.

Also for the system, support will needs be able to solo. Would be counter productive not to be so, as how many do you think would touch a job that needs to party to do anything? Some would, pretty safe to say many more would not.

You could say, "make levelling require grouping". Going on past MMO history (not just FFXI) forced grouping for levelling works at the beginning then after a point it becomes a negative and a barrier to getting new players due to the population diminishing overtime in low level areas making it more and more difficult to progress which in turn deters new players. Then the game changes to make levelling more accessible.

Jobs are pretty balanced in usefullness at this time. Something SE learnt well from FFXI where job balance was pretty non-existant. All jobs are useful, none are really must haves to even be able to pass certain content. Let SE keep it that way.

Support classes are my most favorite classes to play and while I would love one here. Realistic though sadly I don't see it happening in this game unless the devs can better think outside the box and change the way combat and battles work. To be better adaptive outside of the basics of do you tank, heal, or dps. Along the lines of removing patterns and making battles random. Something Yoshida said early on he wouldn't do random elements in battle because none would be able to clear the content. Going along the lines of removing the elemental wheel becaue it would be too stressful to players.

I would say give me the stress PLEASE, I like stress of support / hybrid role but I know it will never happen here unless the core elements of battle change. Its all stock tank, healer, and dps from here on out with maybe a slight nod to support roles mixed in with their abilities.

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Originally Posted by Aylis

Along the lines of removing patterns and making battles random. Something Yoshida said early on he wouldn't do random elements in battle because none would be able to clear the content. Going along the lines of removing the elemental wheel becaue it would be too stressful to players.

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Designing fights which rely on random mechanics and elements isn't as easy as it may sound. There has to be some structure, otherwise the fight success can fall totally into the roll of the dice. But, saying that, many fights do have a certain randomness to it. as examples, t6, who gets honeyglazed, turn 7 who gets voice/shriek. t8, allagan field. etc.

What Yoshi said about random fights is he didnt want one party easy clearing content and another not being able to based solely on rolls of the dice.

as a side thought.

The original "holy trinity" was not Tank, Healer, DPS. But Tank, Healer, Mezzer (crowd control support role), DPS was a given. But back then Mezzers controlled the battlefield, not the tank :D

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Originally Posted by Aylis

, I like stress of support / hybrid role but I know it will never happen here unless the core elements of battle changes.

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I never found support to be stressful. They tend to be the most boring roles. The ones in lineage 2 take the cake. I remember making this blade dancer the first time I played, it had two swords so that was pretty cool. Later on in parties the others would tell me to do 3-4 dances and then sit in the corner for 5 min. I mean you could DPS or whatever but it wouldn't make a difference.

I'd rather she implements buff debuff skills on existing roles than make one that is just support.

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

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I may have mis-worded what i wanted to say I think. I meant to say not so much random mechanics and elements but more rather of "this is what the monster can do, the monster can use these abilities at random, be ready for anything" type of system, like say taking away the set pattern of Primal's abilities per phase and having them happen in any order. I know it won't happen here because the game wasn't designed for that. Then it may better suit it for support gameplay. Ala Everquest where bards would be pullers, twisters and melee'ers and chanters would be mezzers and buffers and debuffers and mini nukers ^^

Also you have no idea how happy I am when you said the original trinity was tank,healer, mezzer/slower. I was biting my tongue on that because of the time when dps replaced mezzer/slower in the trinity. ^^

That just...seems like an incredibly boring class. I agree with the people that say to just roll support things into other classes.

Wasn't there like one class in very early FFXIV that was solely for supporting shields that eventually got rolled into GLD because it was redundant? I think that's how any support would happen I think.