Break the Trinity System Please

[NyarukoW]

Might as well ask people to break the wheel. Reinventing the wheel, whatever you call it, is still the wheel. Even tracked vehicles are in essence using wheels inside the tracks, and requires a lot more maintenance. Short of flying or sailing where wheels don't apply, I am not sure the bull-headed endeavor to reinvent the wheel will achieve much.

The attempt to replace the trinity with some odd version of the trinity is still the trinity. Actually at theoretical level, you got offense, defense and support, and all characters are some combinations of those. Because at the end of the day, you either do damage to the opponent or you take damage from the opponent, or you assist in either endevour. Healers are just a specialized subset of support favoring defense, i.e. taking hits. The aggro system is just a tool to let a single tank be whole offensive live, without it you'd need a lot more tanks to tank all the mobs. You can tweaks things, but you can not possibly break the trinity system, unless it is a completely different type of game we are playing.

[Delily]

^what... no.

It's simply a modality. It approaches DPS differently.

It wouldn't be a requirement any more than any other Job, especially if they implement more than one.

Some fights would favor it's utilization but that's the same as "it's better to have only 1 Melee in this fight or a mix of Physical/Magical damage"... we have that currently.

Only the most hardcore of raiders who say "no X Job, it does 1% less DPS in our comp" would make it so, but that's normal (MNK>DRG, etc.) & already exists in ARR.

Theycould balance DPS-Support just fine as seen with BRD.

They wouldn't have to entice people to play it either, the people who want to will just like today... people who like tanking tank, people who don't... Don't.

There's such a thing as balancing roles/Jobs to be viable but not OP/UP, it's entirely possible to do with DPS-Support hybrids.

So, now, instead of asking for pure support roles, you're suggesting that Square create a new hybrid/DPS role that can either do full damage or boost the party's damage. In other words, you've gone full circle and are, in essence, asking that the bard's buff spells be stronger.

However, let's put this to the test. You create this Bard+ class and it registers as DPS. This means for the duty finder, the class is irrelevant. If a party gets one and the person decides to play his support role, that means everyone else will be doing more damage, so the run will go a little faster. Otherwise, it has no bearing on the game. This means that for leveling and some early endgame gearing purposes, the class isn't needed, since the designers cannot guarantee the class is present. In more organized raids, should the class's support spells actually be more beneficial, any good raiding FC will require that person play in support mode. So this means the class's abilities will only be useful in raiding. This is close to what the bard is.

Or the designers could go out, and add the support role in. Now, everyone's duty finder queue times suddenly increase. It's now 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 damage, and 1 support for light, and 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dmg, and 1-2 support for full. This of course translates into raids, where the support role is now needed. You've gimped everyone else for the sole purpose of having a support class. Meanwhile, the more organized FC will investigate ways to optimize setups so that the support person can be supplanted with a better damage class, because hey, more damage means a faster clear. Sure, that means the support person would be playing 100% damage, which renders the support aspect useless.

I realize you don't like the trinity, but as I said, the tank/healer/damage role is the most basic group setup in a theme park raiding MMO you can get. Square's setup o spreading CC and support around the classes (like Blizzard has done) is most efficient design. It guarantees you can fire off a CD during a burn phase, but it also ensures you can complete an encounter without the CD.

[Toodles]

"In other words, you've gone full circle and are, in essence, asking that the bard's buff spells be stronger."

Never once did I say make Bard's buff spells stronger.

[Delily]

"In other words, you've gone full circle and are, in essence, asking that the bard's buff spells be stronger."

Never once did I say make Bard's buff spells stronger.

You started by asking for a full support role. Then you asked for a support/dmg that queues as dmg and can reduce its damage to buff the group or play at full dmg. Which is what a bard does. So no, you never explicitly asked for buffs to the bard's spells. You have asked for bard++, at which point the question is one of deciding if a new dmg/support class is needed, or if the existing class needs to be improved.

[Toodles]

^yeah, a Bard does that.

Where is this idea of Bard++ coming from if I didn't suggest buffs to Bards which you admit now.

Buffs to Bards aren't even implied in my posting.

Your whole premise of Bard++ & me suggesting it is so ridiculous.

I also love how it's 2 +'s now... rofl.

[Relaeh]

Meow mix is for kitty cats, not Galka's

[Dwill]

^yeah, a Bard does that.

Where is this idea of Bard++ coming from if I didn't suggest buffs to Bards which you admit now.

Buffs to Bards aren't even implied in my posting.

Your whole premise of Bard++ & me suggesting it is so ridiculous.

I also love how it's 2 +'s now... rofl.

It's not hard to understand. You want a DPS Hybrid that buffs the party but as it seems for you, Bard isn't doing it to a good enough level therefore, buffs to Bard would be implied in your ideology even if you didn't mention them per say. If bards would be buffed, then you'd have a class that according to you, would be a true DPS/Support hybrid.

Then again, your whole ideology doesn't take into account past MMO history on how Supports (Bard and Red Mage FFXI), Hybrid (Bards in FFXIV and Archon in Rift) are always going to be staple to a raid group if they are strong enough and you thinking that only the 1% will drop people for said classes is an utopic thought.

[Toodles]

^because past designs are fallible and just because that 'was' the case doesn't mean it 'has' to be the case in the future.

The problem is past faults (some purposeful) in design making Supports' party-contribution too great (if displacing/sharing a DPS slot)... like you mentioned, "if they are strong enough".

Well yeah, duh, that goes without saying (hence, why I didn't say it).

Also, the 1% was meant as an obvious hyperbole. Utopic & blatant exaggeration aren't the same.

It all comes down to balancing, if a Support didn't 'necessarily' bring "more" to the table than a DPS then a majority of players wouldn't pay any mind since they aren't typically your min-max elitists (which' what I was getting at in my "1%").

Of course, it would need to not bring any less of a contribution either to be designed right.

Let me chart it out like this...

Tanks - 30% enmity gain 30% defense-buffs 40% dps.
Healers - 20% party-buffs 20% dps 60% healing.
DPS - 10% utility 20% self-buffs 70% dps.
Bard - 10% utility 10% self-buffs 10% party-buffs 70% dps.
Support - 15% utility 25% self/party-buffs 60% dps.

Keep in mind, those figures are VERY ROUGH & ONLY INTENDED FOR ILLUSTRATION.

Also, they're meant to demonstrate inputs & not contributions (in other words, 70% of a DPS' button-clicks are strict damage-dealing actions).

Looking at these figures, it's not that Bard needs buffs to better fulfill a Supportive Role... it's that Bard in its current iteration is very "Support-Lite" by design.

It's Support Capabilities don't take an extremely 'active' approach. Your literal actions are more primarily focused on DPS'ing your opponent, periodically toggling a Supportive Ability that applies to the entire party... which' essentially a "passive" method of supporting allies.

Functionally, I would consider that "Support-Lite". More of a "True DPS-Support" Hybrid's literal actions/efforts would be focused on augmentation/detriment of allies/opponents... it's approach would be more "active" in supporting parties.

Does that make sense?

I think the "feel" of a Support could be plausibly achieved via design whilst retaining balance.

[Delily]

^yeah, a Bard does that.

Where is this idea of Bard++ coming from if I didn't suggest buffs to Bards which you admit now.

Buffs to Bards aren't even implied in my posting.

Your whole premise of Bard++ & me suggesting it is so ridiculous.

I also love how it's 2 +'s now... rofl.

Don't get too overworked by a simple change. It's a "programmer's joke" referencing C and C++.

^because past designs are fallible and just because that 'was' the case doesn't mean it 'has' to be the case in the future.

So, rather than admit something was a mistake, we should just keep refining it. We'll get ir right this time, I swear!

It all comes down to balancing, if a Support didn't 'necessarily' bring "more" to the table than a DPS then a majority of players wouldn't pay any mind since they aren't typically your min-max elitists (which' what I was getting at in my "1%").

Do you NOT understand MMO players? The casual vs. hardcore, the claim of the "min-max elistist", they're nothing but fake drama created by the community. We all "want teh purplez" in the end, we all want to see content, we all want our characters to perform to the best of their ability, because in a raiding based themepark MMO, that's all there is. If the support class doesn't offer anything compelling over a damage class, and there is no requirement to play one, people will not play it. Do you not understand why tanks are always in demand?

[Kiara]

I really wish they could.
All this shoehorning into roles stands for a lack of variety. No real stat jobs, no jobs that blur the line. Traditional FF jobs awkwardly twisted to match one of 3 roles. The series wasn't meant to have 3 kinds of jobs with moderate differences, it's a series with all sorts of crazy niches.

It would probably screw up their instanced content though so I don't see them ever doing anything for that.

I agree Gramul.

On a personal level, I loved the interesting / odd Jobs in Final Fantasy Tactics (and other traditional Final Fantasies - Relm (the artist), Strago (Blue Mage)), etc. Things like:


* Geomancer: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Geomancer_(Tactics)




* Time Mage: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Time_Mage_(Tactics)



* Dancer: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Dancer_(Tactics)


etc., but as you said, I guess in MMOs this just isn't possible.

Although I'd say Bard in Final Fantasy XI felt more like a real "Support / Different" job than what we have now (which is mainly DPS).