Isn't this class trinity a bit dated now?

[Yonanja]

Can't speak for any of the other games you mention, but can say that the dungeons and "raids" in Guild Wars 2 is mostly just a zergfest, were everyone is attacking stuff whilly nilly. I'd hate to see FF take a similar route, for PvE group content that system just doesn't work. In a singleplayer game, or maybe PvP it does, but it makes PvE just be chaos.

[Legion88]

After reading this all, there is just an official trinity, in the practice we have allready support classes/jobs.
AST is primary a supporter, 'kay it's a bit to random but it's the right step.
SCH is a supporter to, you can see it as a DPS with healing support or a healer with direkt DPS support.
And by the way, all healers are just supporters, they support the tanks to mitigate damage.
For BRD and MCH it's a different story, cause there support is mostly just for emergancy regeneration like "Oh shit helaer dead! > Manasong" or "fight takes to long all out of TP by time > TPsong". So every support of BRD/MCH will be a DPS loss, if it's not waved in dps stops at all. Every other "supporter" i mentioned has only "support abilitys" which increase the damage of the party.
So be careful with the wish for an support role on its own, you could swap more jobs to it as you would like and they and all other could reworked for this as you don't like them.

I like game mechanic based discussions, so im looking forward to see some of you on an other game mechanics discussion thread.

[Emeke]

I think adding a support role would be cool, mostly because I personally am drawn to that role. That's why I'm enjoying Astrologian because I get a touch of it. If they was to implement and add support roles, jobs, I think the current jobs could stay as is. Bard, Machinist- dps, Astrologian - healer, etc. But instead add new jobs that are completely support. Like Dancer or whatever. Knowing these roles are very niche within players DF becomes a major concern. So why not make it so supports could be a "bonus". Instead of 4 man dungeons up it to 5. 1 tank, healer, 2 dps, 1 support. However make support not mandatory. If a support role does not cue in within a time set, then the group can proceed as normal without one. To me I think a support role is more of a buffing job. One job could specialize in buffing allies, another could be debuffing enemies. Not dps, healing, or tanking.

[Emeke]

I think adding a support role would be cool, mostly because I personally am drawn to that role. That's why I'm enjoying Astrologian because I get a touch of it. If they was to implement and add support roles, jobs, I think the current jobs could stay as is. Bard, Machinist- dps, Astrologian - healer, etc. But instead add new jobs that are completely support. Like Dancer or whatever. Knowing these roles are very niche within players DF becomes a major concern. So why not make it so supports could be a "bonus". Instead of 4 man dungeons up it to 5. 1 tank, healer, 2 dps, 1 support. However make support not mandatory. If a support role does not cue in within a time set, then the group can proceed as normal without one. To me I think a support role is more of a buffing job. One job could specialize in buffing allies, another could be debuffing enemies. Not dps, healing, or tanking. If they did have heals or dps, it should be considerably lower than the jobs that fill that role.

[Callback]

Dated? It's ancient. It fell out of style more than a decade ago. Problem is, XIV uses the same shitty antique combat system that forces it. The trinity is a symptom of shitty combat design, and it will never be cured within XIV.

[VanilleFang]

Hybrids are incredibly hard to balance. Not only do they need to be balanced in and of themselves so that one aspect isn't completely overbearing making every other aspect useless, but they also need to be balanced with every other class.

[AI_wass]

The reason we have a trinity system is because it's a tried-and-true formula that's easy to design and balance around, and that any combat system with any real level of depth must support a system with at least as many roles. One pillar of the trinity controls threats, one pillar supports the party, one pillar murders threats. There's a little wiggle room for hybrids, but building a hybrid such that it can handle more than two roles at once is a balancing nightmare. A little too weak, and it's useless. A little too strong, and it's overpowered. AST, with its party buffs, already treads that awkward line between under- and overpowered. And if you do get that magic balance right, you have to keep designing around it and tiptoeing so as not to upset it. Hybrids centralize encounter design and job balance around themselves like gravity wells.

It's much easier, much less of a headache, to design more straightforward jobs with interesting gimmicks than to develop true hybrid jobs.

[DarthVella]

The reason we have a trinity system is because it's a tried-and-true formula that's easy to design and balance around... It's much easier, much less of a headache, to design more straightforward jobs with interesting gimmicks than to develop true hybrid jobs.

Agreed. As interesting as a more varied set of roles would be, it would take an intense amount of trial and error for it to be even near balanced, and you would need to fine-tune the system each and every time you add levels and classes. And while doing so is not a bad thing to do, it is (sadly) far easier and more alluring to take something pre-existing that you know works and put your own spin on it.

To cap it all off, to get a new system like that working within an existing game would require uprooting and reworking pretty much everything from character stats to solo quests to dungeon mechanics. You might as well be making FF XIV: Reborn Harder.

[Voldemort]

I foresee a problem with necessity vs. optional-party-member when it comes to preformed parties completing duties.

With the current trinity, (in theory) any job can be brought to fulfill each of the roles. Bringing along a SMN and a WAR should not be any different than bringing a MNK and a PLD. The fact that you bring one DPS and one tank is sufficient for those two slots.

However, if we introduce support roles, there will inevitably become a struggle between needing a support role and optionally bringing a support role. Duties would either have to be balanced to allow both support and DPS, which would be nigh impossible. As clearly an extra DPS would bring in more damage output to kill things faster.
Or the duties would strictly cater to support. Meaning, you must queue with support. And nobody wants that.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

snip

Well to be honest, 3.X Bards really aren't that bad in terms of keeping up with the damage potential of MNK & DRG, and their ability to do massive ranged spike damage very quickly is normally better than a SMN. I really can't say anything in terms of lv60 MCH, but I've easily kept up with the damage potentials of most melee dps, even when they have prime conditions.

Since you weren't on the Forums back in 2.X, take my advice when I say that a BRD could not do the damage potential that a BLM or MNK could do, and doing a double BRD 4-man were painfully slow. Funnily enough though, BRD was still "required" due to their MP song and Foe's Requiem, which means they pretty accurately fit the role of support. Heck, they're still valued for these abilities, but now there's actual skill in the BRD rotation. People who played BRD for it's carefree playstyle back in 2.X were put to the test when they were given casting times on their abilities, and I would say roughly 40% of them don't know how to effectively play with Wanderer's Minuet on. This is why the whole stereotype of "bad" Bard damage is still being circulated, even though there are plenty of people who are extremely efficient at the class out there.

EDIT: Oh, and if you didn't know, you can surpass the character limit by editing the post.