Dismantle the Holy Trinity

[Aillith]

Holy hell what did I just read...

OP: I have an idea.
Every one else: We disagree for X reason
OP: *explodes because people don't agree and they are all wrong*

Don't post ideas if you are not comfortable with people wanting to discuss them and rebuke them. It really is that simple.

[Caitlyn]

Actually, I like OP's idea.

I have no idea if this will ever work, but to be honest, we almost have two stances for each class (Monk, Tanks, Healers). Bard and Machinist may work as some kind of supporters, but their support ability is not as high as it could be.

In fact, SE wants to change their cross skill and battle system. I m still wondering, how radical SE want to go to achieve this. At the moment, some classes can fit other roles very well (DPS-Warrior for example). I m not sure, if this is supposed to be.

From the last Famitsu interview:

Q5. Now we'd like to get into job balance. Thanks to your careful balancing, there isn't a single job that can't clear all content. We think that is marvelous, but i feel warriors and Scholars are a little..you know?
Y. Not a little...I think they are sticking out when it comes to utility. I'm not comparing jobs with their personal potential, but when you look at the wide range of utility WARs and SCHs can offer, they are just outrageous.

Q. By that, you mean in an 8 man party?
Y. Not specifically an 8 man party. In any sort of party composition, WARs and SCHs can slip themselves through most situations and their seats are guaranteed. When you compare WARs and SCHs to other jobs, you can say there is a bigger container when it comes to playerskill where the job can carry you and that is what troubles me.

On Topic: The idea is ok, but there is no garantee if and how this will actual work ingame. Maybe it wont change anything, maybe it will cause even more chaos as it is right now. Who knows.

[Shurrikhan]

I’ve been cultivating this idea in a special petri dish lately.

I mean, if you're going to dismantle the trinity anyways, why stop at renaming them, and ultimately creating just two roles out of three? Is there something wrong with leaving each job just... itself, perhaps with a summary of its various traits and role affinities?

And honestly, I like my damage "specialists" a little too much, as rare as I think they should actually be. And, some of their utility, be it potentially attributable instead to a "fighter" or "support" style, I just think fits better still as that third "role".

More importantly though, I just don't really see how this is going to add any particularly new or interesting gameplay in and of itself? What do you ultimately want from this?

I'd love to see more cross-role involvement, where "roles" are toolkits rather than clear divisions of duties, but I just don't see much if any difference from this binary grouping as opposed to our current ternary system.

[TaleraRistain]

Yeah, that's the one.

Champions isn't dead, though. CoX is the one that was canned.

As to the original post, I have to ask the question of who's job would healing be? No one ever wants to play the healer. Even healers in groups now are too concerned with putting out damage. Not having someone designated as the "Hey people are dying, you have to prevent that" role just seems to be a recipe for disaster.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

This is a silly idea.. I do not support this..

Maybe, but I’m quite confident of it. I don’t like how the design of the roles in FF14 are. In other games the roles are very strict. Tanks tank, Healers heal, DPS kill. In FF14 the devs seem to want everyone to do everything, and I believe the Holy Trinity is getting in their way.

Balacing the burden of DPS, Tank and Healer isn’t quite working. The DPS have the easiest job in the game, while Tanks and Healers have the hardest. Despite that, Tanks and Healers are still demanded to do the DPS job as well. And I blame this on the lack of customization.

In other MMOs multiple roles are a common concept. If you want to solo that solo content, just spec to a DPS build so you can actually do things fast enough, if you want to queue for group content, you can then spec to something else, because you have other people to do the DPS job.

As others have said, you can't blame the game for what the players do with the skills available to them. And why do all jobs have to have 2 roles, what is so hard about changing jobs to que?

Let’s make things easier: Now everyone has the potential of causing as much damage.
We can balance all jobs to cause about 2000 DPS in the endgame, without caring about their roles. Fighters and Support cause as much damage, as long as they are using the right stance.

Man this sounds boring.. Lets homogonize every class/job. People are already complaining that jobs feel samey, lets make it worse.

What does all of this mean?
That means that all melee now take damage, deal DPS level damage and the ranged have support and deal DPS level support. That also means we have 2 tanks, 2 healers and they can, at any time, become 4 DPS.

They can already do this?

What does any of this have to do with FF?
Final Fantasy series always had this system built in it: Rows.
Characters could be put in the Front Row and in the Back Row. Front row takes more damage, deals more physical damage, Back Row takes less damage, but is able to use ranged weapons to their full potential, melee physical is weakened. Does it resemble something? Aye.

This was a thing is older FF titles, and has since gone away in newer titles. FFXIV is also an action RPG, and having this sort of system would not work properly, without changing the game up drastically.

I'm gonna be brutally honest, this idea is garbage. It wouldn't fix anything you perceive to be wrong with the game. I personally, would quit if any of your proposed role changes became the new norm.

The Trinity is there because it works. Its very clear cut what each job's role is, and what is expected of them on its minimum level. What players do at a jobs maximum level of play, is not what the norm of the job is required to do to function properly, that is all playerskill. Being able to Tank and deal loads of damage is playerskill, not a fault of the trinity.

[Chocolys]

First let me get this straight, I'm not fan of the "Trinity concept" and I wish more game would stop being designed around it.

Now concerning FFXIV and what you proposed:

People can already Tank, DPS and Heal when they wish. The game already supports it, it's called multi-classing on the same character.

Now about allowing an unique class to assume different role types, it would not solve the problem.
For example the issue with the lack of Tanks is the lack of people wanting to tank, or said otherwise the lack of people who wants to manage the focus/mechanics requirements of a tank. Same goes for Healing and DPSing. The three role plays differently regardless of the class; and there is simply more people who prefers to be DPS or Heal than tank.

[Solaiel]

Well i think taking out the trinity is the worst thing you can do, going by the title of this thread. Taking it out would literally mean going the guild wars 2 way of playing. As far as i recall it, that time was like no one could tank and healing was more something of a self heal stuff. There everyone was actually fighter or support. Sometimes it was fun , but as it came to dungeons it was a real mess. The thing we have here right now is basically some trinity with options for more depending on player skill.
So the question is only how to balance the trinity to feel rewarding when it comes to improving your skill.
I mean , if you take a fight on the logical lvl then it is clear that someone has to take the boss (tank) so that the others have their backs free to do damage, mechanics and keeping the group up. You always need the possibilities to do these things on an efficient lvl to beat real challenging stuff and removing the trinity feels a bit like removing the options to do this. So i would not call it remove at all. The thin line is to adjust the necessity of actually performing the roles at all and at the same time being rewarding to the ones who try to improve while not forgetting people with less time to do something like that. There has got to be something for everyone and thats a real hard thing to do after all. ( i think everyone admits this last thing)

So as one example from runes of magic. There was also something like the trinity, but with a widely opened gap for equip. The end of the story was, nobody learned the fight anymore but bought lots of high end equip from the market board and the bosses were dead in like 5 seconds or it was a wipe. (a little bit exaggerated , but still close to how it was there. but i hope you get the picture)
The problem i see there is, though fun at times it is not really rewarding for fun in the long run. You want to actually have something to do, but dishing out big damage numbers is of course something that is always contributing to the fight.
So i think having to do the jobs role and being able to deal some damage while there is an opening is something good actually. I also think that is what SE is trying to do here. Being able to clear content on the base role lvl and improve via damage and stuff in skill if the players. The only issue is the balance here. At times you are able to make it right, at times you make it too hard and sometimes too easy.
I think you really dont want to abandon the possibilities to tank or heal, because that would just seal a coffin.
Making it possible to perform actual multi roles like i think is what you mean is not a bad thing though. Warrior can tank and dps already and even the other tanks are not that far away to that anymore, even if there is still a noticeable gap.
But right now i just am not sure how far this should go. Because of the skill bloat and itemization we have it is really hard to address viable things in a balanced way. But remember that in the end too many options that are very good at the same time also makes the game a real lot easier if not done right. The battle rezz of summoners are a good example here, because even if both healers are dead you can still revive one and depending on situation add a lb3 and everyone stands again. combined with swift cast it is only a matter of seconds. In my opinion that is a real life saver.
So remember, one is easy to talk , but in the end there is way more to it than meets the eye.
So much from me, and dont take it with too much salt, because i only wanted to state some things like it looks like to me.

[Leogun]

Champions isn't dead, though. CoX is the one that was canned.

But what he described isn't how City of Heroes was. He said "Everyone just picked the most pew pew thing and ignored every other option. Zero people healing, zero people being tanky. Pure deeps fest.
Running a dungeon was the worst thing ever. Groups were an unmanageable disaster." which is completely reverse of CoX in that in CoX people aimed to maximize buffs/heals to the point the meta consisted of mostly support/heals before DPS.

An MMO can be dead but still be around to play. I figure the context of "dead" is that it's not all that popular. I don't even think DCUO is raking in that much and it just makes the superhero niche MMOs look like bad investments compared to fantasy, which is a shame. CoX may be dead but it was *killed*, which is different.

This was a thing is older FF titles, and has since gone away in newer titles. FFXIV is also an action RPG, and having this sort of system would not work properly, without changing the game up drastically.

FFXIV is *NOT* an action RPG...it has auto-attacks for gods' sake. Moving out of a glowie spot on the ground or requiring the press of a button to take an action isn't what constitutes an action RPG...even GW2 struggles with this as it has some elements but ultimately is still target based. A more true action RPG would be Blade and Soul or Tera.

[Reynhart]

I didn't know Warriors stopped tanking because they can put up a DPS level damage. I didn't know Overgeared Healers stopped healing because their damage is as strong as the undergeared DPS.

They didn't because they still queue as tank and healers, so it's expected for them to do so. Now, if everyone is either Fighter or Support, you can be sure than a lot of groups will only have "DPS" players.

Besides, if you remove these roles, you'll also remove every bonus tied to them. Bonus that were created to give a better incentive to play tanks and healers.

Point:
- SE's design is for everyone to DPS.
- But the Holy Trinity isn't helping that design.

You're right about these two points working really bad together. One of these is reponsible for the current mess...but maybe not the one you think.

[MistakeNot]

Maybe, but I’m quite confident of it. I don’t like how the design of the roles in FF14 are. In other games the roles are very strict. Tanks tank, Healers heal, DPS kill. In FF14 the devs seem to want everyone to do everything, and I believe the Holy Trinity is getting in their way.

Balacing the burden of DPS, Tank and Healer isn’t quite working. The DPS have the easiest job in the game, while Tanks and Healers have the hardest. Despite that, Tanks and Healers are still demanded to do the DPS job as well. And I blame this on the lack of customization.

FF14 actually have a very clear distinction between DPS, Healers, and Tanks - much more rigidly enforced than in most other MMOs I have played.
DPS don't have an easier job - not if they are doing it right. It is just that when a healer or tank does a bad job it is much more obvious than when a DPS does a bad job.

The only times when tanks or healers need to do substantial damage is when the DPS aren't doing their job properly.