Break the Trinity System Please

[Jacost]

Game is still 4-5th old in my opinion cus they use bunch of things from 1.0 still in this game. Not saying its a bad thing but people saying its a completely new game are blinded.

So by that logic, FFX-2 was the same game as FFX because most of the maps and models were the same. And every single 2D FF was actually the same game.

[TouchandFeel]

1. change the battle system, 2. Make the game way more openworld. 3. Add new content that differs from any other content in the game.

1) I feel the battle system works for the most part for what the game is and how it is supposed to function. A lot of people seem to want a no GCD, faster, no enforced Trinity setup like GW2. While I enjoyed GW2's open world leveling content, its end game and dungeons were terrible. It was a zerg everything mess with no real strategy or synergy in which everyone just ran around spamming their abilities as if they were soloing and other people just happened to be there. Actually that is kind of how the whole game felt. I am all for more intense, interesting and complex, random or what have you battles, but that can be accomplished through content design and not redoing the battle system itself. While not by noticeable leaps and bounds, I feel that the boss and dungeon design has gotten somewhat better and more interesting.

2) I will agree with you that this game world feels more restricted and closed off than certain other MMO's, however not to quite the extent that many people seem to make out to be. Many other MMO's have had at least one expansion under its belt before players in the Americas or Europe even got their hands on them, with the exceptions of course of EQ and WoW but those do not represent the entirety of all MMO's. Also, the Dev team has taken this feedback into account and Yoshida has expressed that for the expansion, they are trying to have a more open world.

3) Hunts, Treasure Chests/Maps, Sightseeing Log, Moogle Mail Delivery, that questline where you have to solve the ancient riddle, other random bits of content I don't remember off the top of my head. Point being, they have, are, and will be adding new and varied types of gameplay content that are quite different than a lot of the existing content. Problem is most people either don't do this ancillary content, don't know it exists, or don't appreciate it. On this note, I can't wait to see the Golden Saucer once it is released.

[Niwashi]

The only reason the design team can't do that currently is they can't rely on a certain class's skill to be present. Part of solving that is strengthening the existing design.

Support isn't a class, it's a role, just like tank is a role, healer is a role, and damage dealer is a role. They can certainly design content to require someone who can fulfill the support role, just as they currently design content to require players who can fill the other three roles. (Of course, just as with the other three roles they currently use, there should ideally be multiple different classes that take different approaches to fulfilling the support role.)

[Verlyn]

I think what really needs to happen is that more classes need utility. Whether it's one of the melee dps getting enough mitigation to become an off tank in add situations (not strong enough to handle tanking bosses though) or the bard getting some better utility songs that don't translate to just 'more dps' or 'sustain' (It'd be great to have a long cooldown that basically casts a party-wide shield. Kinda like having a second layer of Succor.) or so on.

If more classes brought specific kinds of utility in addition to their primary role (as opposed to just healers and caster dps getting literally all of it and bards just being passive buffs in the background), there will be situations where that utility can come in handy and more varied comps will be encouraged. Otherwise, that class can still bring their primary role.

[Delily]

Support isn't a class, it's a role, just like tank is a role, healer is a role, and damage dealer is a role. They can certainly design content to require someone who can fulfill the support role, just as they currently design content to require players who can fill the other three roles. (Of course, just as with the other three roles they currently use, there should ideally be multiple different classes that take different approaches to fulfilling the support role.)

Actually, healing is not a role, as it's a subset of support, since the healer supports the group by keeping people alive. This conversation is more about having dedicated buffing and debuffing classes, like FFXI's bard and red mage. The design team could definitely create those classes and a formal requirement for them, but as mentioned, that would create another choke point for queues, and since the class is now required, you'd have to balance around their presence, so you'd in effect be weakening every other class for the sake of having those classes present. Also, organized groups would strive to find way to reduce their impact, so it'd collapse back into heals, damage, and tanks. The current design of spreading buffs, debuffs, and CC among the various classes and job is probably the efficient to balance the game.

[Jodou]

Guild Wars 2 tried this and it was trash in terms of raids. Not signed.

[Verlyn]

Not that I'm advocating a removal of the trinity, because the structure is really nice for having tightly designed boss fights...
...but like, using GW2 as an example of what happens when it's gone is really short sighted. This is largely because GW2's dungeon designs and encounter design are trash, not because the Trinity isn't there. Correlation, not causation and all of that.

[Dyvid]

Adding a fourth pillar creates new problems to an old system.
Tank ---- Healer ---- DPS ---- Support.

Now imagine queue times by adding that fourth and the actually amount of people that would play it. Then you have to re-balance all the fights and encounter to make need of a supoort role. Not worth the effort for minimal gain.

[TouchandFeel]

There were a number of things in GW2's design that worked against it for having fun and engaging dungeons and raids. The lack of a properly defined role system was a major aspect of that. In order for a mmo boss fight to function properly and be fun and challenging, players must assume distinct roles necessary to defeat boss which for the most part boils down to players adopting the roles found in the trinity plus any boss mechanic extra stuff. If roles are not enforced by things such as class, job, etc. and everybody can try to do whatever role they want, battles turn into an uncoordinated mess and it is very difficult to design and tune such content when how the players will engage it is so unpredictable. While you can successfully create some variance to the classical Trinity setup such as allowing stance changes, primary+secondary roles, giving different roles/classes extra utility, in the end using the trinity system or some close variant of it is best for this kind of game and content.

[Niwashi]

Then you have to re-balance all the fights and encounter to make need of a supoort role.

Yeah, I regret that the game wasn't designed for all four roles from the outset, but agree that trying to change it mid-stream after the game has been out this long presents a lot of difficulties, so probably won't happen.

Limiting themselves to only three presents some other difficulties, though. With their initial set of classes/jobs, SE has done a really good job of making each one both unique and relevant, but it's going to get increasingly hard to maintain that fact as they start adding more. A fourth combat role for support classes would increase the number of ways they could branch out with new jobs.