Dismantle the Holy Trinity

[whiskeybravo]

The issues I've seen with this game weren't seen by me alone, but is is documented an discussed throughout the entirety of these forums.

Second thing, you talk as if I had the power to change anything and would upset people if I did? I can't just post things in this forum anymore without salt flying to my face of "Get out of here demon!". People can't even just discuss ideas anymore, everything is threatening to their very lives. That is disgusting.

Third thing, you complain about people "having" to learn a second role. Sorry pal, they already have to, that is reality. I want people to just accept it, and jobs to be properly designed to do so. It is by finally properly acknowledging that that is how jobs are supposed to work, that people will be able to properly design the jobs and then play them. But SE can't decide it, so they keep making a poor job with the concept. If they want to walk to that direction, fine, I'm just suggesting what can help them go to the direction they want to, and as I see it, the old concepts of the Holy Trinity are getting in the way of their plans. They need something new, made just for it.

Fourth thing... Oh, like, did you see the next expansion, like, a total re-work of the combat system?

I didn't think there was a lot of salt in my post.. I even complimented your efforts. And yea, if you're going to make the suggestions I'll assume, for arguments sake, that you are actually capable of making the changes. So I simply asked "why?"

Other than showing the cross-class skills pool, nobody is sure exactly how much, or how little, the combat system will change. And if it's mainly just dealing with UI, maybe we'll even be able to keep the old one. It's too early to tell, and what's more, do you not want to see what they end up doing before proclaiming the system needs to be scrapped and rebuilt entirely? SE has done a pretty decent job listening to the players to address concerns across many different aspects of the game. May not always be exactly what the players want, for that matter though it may not be exactly what the devs want either, just the best common ground that could be established.

And no, people do not have to learn how to white mage to be a bard, or learn how to paladin to be a monk. Not suggesting learning other roles doesn't help in overall understanding of the games mechanics, but it's certainly not a requirement beyond level 15.

I personally don't see a problem with the "holy trinity". Makes a lot of sense in my opinion. Tanks tank, dps deal damage, and healers heal. Any problems which arise are mostly due to how the players play these roles. From my observations: tanks are too concerned about their damage output. Every DPS wants to be the one that doesn't have to deal with mechanics so they can have max deeps. And healers, well healers have the shit end of the stick, having to deal with derpy dps that don't dodge or try hard tanks that die to every tank buster, and usually end up handling all the mechanics on top of it. But this has nothing to do with job roles, and everything to do with the player base. I don't see how changing every role to be a damage dealer on-demand changes this meta, and like Sigmar mentioned, it'd prolly make it a lot worse.

[Ahrniel]

And yea, if you're going to make the suggestions I'll, for arguments sake, assume you were actually capable of making the changes. So I simply asked "why?"

... I suppose it does make sense, I apologize.

Other than showing the cross-class skills pool, nobody is sure exactly how much, or how little, the combat system will change.

It is all speculation indeed. But I used it as a comparison because SE seems "willing" to change and scrap a lot of combat/skill related things that were around since 2.0. I think it is fair to assume this kind of change wouldn't, effort-wise, be beyond what they are willing to do.

And no, people do not have to learn how to white mage to be a bard, or learn how to paladin to be a monk. Not suggesting learning other roles doesn't help in overall understanding of the games mechanics, but it's certainly not a requirement beyond level 15.

I didn't mean it that way. I mean Tanks and Healers are having to learn how to play as DPS as well, that kind of role, not a specific job.


And the Holy Trinity works, when your Healers and Tanks don't have DPS stances. If I were to compare to WoW back in WotLK as a Restoration Druid I had a single target low damage spell called Wrath and a DoT called Moonfire. My stats were the equivalent of full Mind/Piety and almost no Intelligence in FF14. My damage was terrible, and I had no Cleric Stance. My allies took a lot of damage so I had plenty to heal, and my healing kit was quite diverse from early on. I was a full time healer with no regrets.

FF14 isn't designed like that. Tanks not having to put effort on tanking, Healers not having to put effort on healing, and having plenty of time to switch into DPS stance is how the game designed. But they can't design the classes fully because "They are still Tanks and Healers anyway, shouldn't do a good job like DPS do, because if they do DPS will be useless anyway." They can't get in a stable position with the current design, so I say scrap DDs and embrace DPS as everyone's role. Use the opportunity to polish that Bard's garbage songs and stop being shy in giving utility to jobs that already have it, but don't have more because they just happen to be DPS.

[dejiko_san]

But you're not forced to DPS. A healer can choose to DPS or not. A tank can MT or DPS as OT. It's a choice.
Instead of breaking all the roles, why not just add a fourth role and call it support?

[Leogun]

But you're not forced to DPS. A healer can choose to DPS or not. A tank can MT or DPS as OT. It's a choice.
Instead of breaking all the roles, why not just add a fourth role and call it support?

Not a bad proposition and one requested before on the forums.

However, I suggest another alternative: the fourth role becomes Control.

Support, IMO, is just an extension of healing. Using abilities to recover resources should be something relegated by ones self, i.e. you shouldn't need or want to add "support" to a group composition just to give TP to 1 person that might run out of it during a fight. As is, we already have medication that could, to an extent, completely fill that combat role. So how about some other uses for our limited control? How about adding more to the role to better utilize control within boss battles?

And if you do things right, it may diversify possible team compositions. Like you may not need a tank if you have a healer, 2 controllers and a dps or with proper coordination, 2 healers, 1 controller and a dps or with proper cooldown management, 2 controllers, 1 tank and dps. The idea being, if each role was truly as capable and important compared to each other, then success should be possible with composition appropriate tactics. Some compositions would definitely require more coordination than the standard but not teeth-pullingly so.

[whiskeybravo]

And the Holy Trinity works, when your Healers and Tanks don't have DPS stances. If I were to compare to WoW back in WotLK as a Restoration Druid I had a single target low damage spell called Wrath and a DoT called Moonfire. My stats were the equivalent of full Mind/Piety and almost no Intelligence in FF14. My damage was terrible, and I had no Cleric Stance. My allies took a lot of damage so I had plenty to heal, and my healing kit was quite diverse from early on. I was a full time healer with no regrets.

FF14 isn't designed like that. Tanks not having to put effort on tanking, Healers not having to put effort on healing, and having plenty of time to switch into DPS stance is how the game designed. But they can't design the classes fully because "They are still Tanks and Healers anyway, shouldn't do a good job like DPS do, because if they do DPS will be useless anyway." They can't get in a stable position with the current design, so I say scrap DDs and embrace DPS as everyone's role. Use the opportunity to polish that Bard's garbage songs and stop being shy in giving utility to jobs that already have it, but don't have more because they just happen to be DPS.

See, I never played WoW, or any other MMORPGs for that matter. I mainly got into this game because it was Final Fantasy, not because it was an MMO, so I don't really have a base of comparison for how other games do it.

So it sounds like, and this is just my interpretation of your opinion, a true "holy trinity" would have something like: tanks that deal less damage, with their main struggle being aggro generation and survival. Healers with less offensive ability, only there for healing/otherwise supporting the group during combat, and I guess dps just deal damage/handle mechanics? (not sure?). And the current problem, as you see it, is that there is too much cross-over between the roles which is causing design problems/job imbalance/community unrest. Does that sound about right?

The only additional things I can think to comment on is that tanks did actually use to struggle a bit to maintain aggro, their enmity generation has been buffed several times since ARR launched, so that is probably why aggro generation has been a joke for the last year or so at least. And healers didn't use to dps in raids due to the accuracy required. At some point, can't remember exactly when, second or third coil I think, is when they buffed healer gear to include accuracy, and that's when healer dps became relatively common/expected at end game.