How to get people to tank!

[Makeda]

And that reason is bogus because it implies that every game without a trinity can not present a skillful challenge. This statement completely precludes all single-player games (including the Dark Souls series) from having any sort of skillful challenge as well as most competitive games ever, whether real or electronic. Fighting games, MOBAs, shooters, dungeon crawlers...

My apologies, but perhaps YOU should be the one considering why things are as they are, because what you are saying makes no sense.

You say you want to get rid of tanks.

I present to you an actual current MMO, Guild Wars 2, that tried to get rid of tanks, and failed to do so. An MMO that had to patch tanks AND healers into the game in order to make it's content work.

You then try to counter me not with another no-tank MMO, but with SINGLE PLAYER games. And you call my point nonsense? Yours is not even on topic.

Please try again, without the 'bogus' non-MMO example. Bring me an example of an MMO that has done successful group content without needing tanks or tanks+healers. Perhaps, as you say, you should be considering WHY things are as they are... and not trying to use non-MMOs to argue MMO design.

You might want to start by looking over Guild Wars 2 with a very critical eye - examine what it did when it tried to be an MMO without tanks, examine why that failed, and examine why it now has a trinity based raid system. In there, in an actual MMO - you will likely find you 'WHY', or if you can - you will find what they could have done instead and be able to present that in a way that fixes all of their things their developers were unable to find solutions to.