Break the Trinity System Please

[Triston]

While it has been shown in past MMOs that having a dedicated support role allows for much more complicated mechanics, (see RIFT) the major problem is in bottlenecking for queues. Adding a support role would require that they increase party sizes to ~6, (tank/heal/support/3dps) which then would become 12-14 in a full party, and having such LARGE groups is really unwieldy from both a designer and player perspective. (just ask Blizzard)
No matter how cool some of us think it would be to play a dedicated buffer/debuffer, there are 4-5x as many people who just want to do dps, and it's already well-known how bad DPS queues are in every MMO ever.


Additionally, depending on how the role is taken into account in high-end raid situations, the support jobs would become either obsolete in certain cases (having one that specializes in CC in a no-CC fight or vice versa, again see RIFT or EQ) OR functionally identical with redundant gameplay, making you wonder why they exist at all. (WoW players do notice when they don't have the full collection of raid buffs, but ask how much they care which classes they bring to a raid)

The only meaningful workaround would be to design encounters to permit for more than one strategy depending on which support you bring, and wow if that isn't asking way too much of any developer just to add another role.

As a BRD player from FFXI, I will be the first to admit that I love primary supporting, but it is an extremely flawed concept. I played BRD, which has enjoyed the advantage of having been welcome in 99.999% of all content FFXI has produced. Ask a RDM player how they feel, or PUP, or DNC, etc. Support roles inherently compete with each other, and have no place in modern MMOs where balance BETWEEN classes is valued. Support abilities are best when distributed among all jobs, especially in a way that all are useful but never required.

..and did I mention it's unpopular? Everyone needs a BRD, few want to play one.