Break the Trinity System Please

[Aylis]

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.

[Sapphic]

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.

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

[Aylis]

snip

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. ^^

[Sapphic]

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. ^^

We used to use Necros for pulls, feign death ftw! XD Bards pulling sand giant trains in Ro >.<

TRAIN TO ZONE! MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!

Everquest 2 at launch XPiing in Fallen Gate, seeing someone running past trailing half the dungeon, sighing as you knew they would splat your party running back XD then at the end, having to walk to freeport because you where overburdened with copper coins :P

[Aylis]

We used to use Necros for pulls, feign death ftw! XD Bards pulling sand giant trains in Ro >.<

TRAIN TO ZONE! MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!

Everquest 2 at launch XPiing in Fallen Gate, seeing someone running past trailing half the dungeon, sighing as you knew they would splat your party running back XD then at the end, having to walk to freeport because you where overburdened with copper coins :P

Oh Fancy, how I remember the stories of your sand giant trains xD

[M0xie]

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.

Everquest... the original trinity was tank,healer, mezzer/slower.

To comment on both of these, I would first say that I played enchanter in Everquest for way too many years, and I loved it. I still miss that game because there aren't any other games with a class like it. Support classes were necessary however if you recall, because group content required parties of 6 and if you didn't have a slower or a crowd control or buffs it was usually not pretty. Content was hard. The "new" trinity works because support classes aren't needed anymore.

[Sylve]

Designing fights which rely on random mechanics and elements isn't as easy as it may sound. snip

Yup. pretty much the whole problem with too many random elements to a boss is that you might just get lucky one week and the boss just plain wont use its skills, but the next time would use them back to back constantly.

Imagine if Weights, Stomps and Landslides on Titan had no cooldown, and Titan just randomly decided when to use them. You'd end up in situations where he could Stomp, immediately Landslide and then drop a second Stomp into a Weight then used Bombs without any recovery time between. You would spend so much of your time just running around in circles that you'd never get any DPS time on Titan, it just wouldn't be fun or practical. Theres nothing wrong with structure.

[Moonleg]

Yup. pretty much the whole problem with too many random elements to a boss is that you might just get lucky one week and the boss just plain wont use its skills, but the next time would use them back to back constantly.

Imagine if Weights, Stomps and Landslides on Titan had no cooldown, and Titan just randomly decided when to use them. You'd end up in situations where he could Stomp, immediately Landslide and then drop a second Stomp into a Weight then used Bombs without any recovery time between. You would spend so much of your time just running around in circles that you'd never get any DPS time on Titan, it just wouldn't be fun or practical. Theres nothing wrong with structure.

What about a shared cooldown, though? He might use Weight, Weight, Weight, Weight, or Weight, Bomb, Weight, Weight, or Landslide, Bomb, Landslide, Weight etc. It would still be random but not "LOL I WIN!" from Titan's point of view.

[Aylis]

Theres nothing wrong with structure.

Random and structure can exist together in peace. Monster abilities would still have cool downs for obvious reasons so no worries about situations where it would be impossible to win. Where as we have now Titan we know will do "this" 5 seconds later he'll do "this" then 5 seconds later we know he'll do "this" With adjustments to allow for chances of recovery it might go as He "might" do this 10-15 seconds later he "might" do that, then another 10-15 seconds later he "might" do that other thing. Its nothing really new to the genre, basically its be prepared on a different level.

But yeah like I said in my other post it would need a combat overhaul. Which would have to happen anyway if a support role is added. As it is now the game's content is built around 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 dps or 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps by DF standards. Adding a support class means either 1 dps gotta go or 1 extra person has to be added so party sizes would be 5 for dungeons and 9 for raids. Both would mean content would have to be changed up or down depending on what would happen and its something I don't put a lot of faith in ever happening here.