Random Query: The Trinity System

[Vespar]

I feel XIV is also missing something else on top of an expanded or overhauled party system (ie. the trinity system overhauled). XIV is missing equipment/weapon variety.
What I mean is that the weapons and armor you get in XIV are incredibly linear. The gear does not have "abilities" or bonus stats natively that give players a choice or reason to customize their character with certain pieces. Instead we have this system where one piece is better than the next with nearly the exact same stats just more of that stat. For example: law gear is trumped by alexander gear, which is then trumped by eso/void ark gear, which is trumped by savage gear, so on and so forth, the cycle continues each patch.

There is barely any reason to mix and match gear. There are no bonuses attached to gear such as 10% dmg bonus against undead, an added haste effect, 10% boost to magic dmg or ninjutsu, elemental or dmg type resistances or what have you. There are no "attack 2-4 times" weapons or anything that made gear and equipment farming so satisfying like it was in FFXI or other games.

Sadly, I'm not certain this can be changed now without overhauling the entire game to do it. Which is likely why people atleast want to see an overhauled trinity system to allow for actual support classes.

[SaitoHikari]

I'm pretty much against the devs really deviating from the trinity system because, as others have already stated, the balance issues would far outweigh the theoretical positives.

I played another game known as Dragon Nest, an action MMO, that originally started with something that resembled the trinity system somewhat (although there were never role restrictions in parties at all), although once they began releasing new classes that deviated away from the system (as in having hybrid roles), it resulted in massive balancing issues for YEARS that slowly drained the life out of that game. You had healing classes able to out-DPS half the classes in the game AND out-heal the other healers for various reasons (such as faster-casting/longer range heals). Some of the top DPS classes in the game were capable of tanking better than actual tanks, along with having party buffs and debuffs that were so good that the developers had to implement a cap on how high stats could go/how much enemies could get debuffed (which only made the situation worse, as people min-maxed party compositions around them). And the devs would implement mechanics to discourage abuse of the buffs/debuffs such as buff wipes and numerous boss invulnerability mechanics, but all that really resulted in was a 'burst to skip mechanics or die' mentality among the community.

On top of that, the power creep and the DPS checks soon became so insane and the gap between what classes could do in parties became so vast that clearing a raid eventually became a question of what classes you were taking, rather than anything to do with player skill. Even regular solo content became near unplayable for the 'pure healer' and 'pure tank' classes because the hybrid classes and the out of control power creep pushed damage standards unreasonably high. It was so bad to the point where the developers in the past half year decided to basically reboot every class in the game by almost universally nerfing/outright removing some party buffs, debuffs, and heals, redsigned most content, scaled back on the ridiculous mechanics, and actually pulled back into a trinity system. And for the first time in years, people now consider that game's PvE to be -playable- for the average non-raider. Although admittedly, those changes were an extremely hard pill to swallow for the majority of that game's raiders, although most now admit that the changes were necessary in the end - especially when the vast majority of raiders in that game had been changing their class every half year once things began spiraling out of control from what I had seen myself.

(Given the action nature of Dragon Nest, everything in that game is basically varying levels of DPS as well, much like how people would describe healers and tanks in this game. But completely disregarding the trinity system would be foolish in actual practice, while any advantages are only theoretical at best.)

[Soralis]

trinity for sure, i don't like games without it, especially gw2 or blade and soul, as much as i wanted to like them i just couldn't get past the no healers tanks thing. those games lost all party setup in favor of soloing everything, i can't remember when i talked to someone in those games. i mean mmorpg is for people playing with other people not a solo game. dungeons there are a complete zergfest. In all other ffs we have the trinity system without it there wouldn't be any use for the party. so yes i support trinity system all the way, if they change it and make it more gw2 like i would leave this game.

[Vespar]

trinity for sure, i don't like games without it, especially gw2 or blade and soul, as much as i wanted to like them i just couldn't get past the no healers tanks thing.

I dont think "no healers or tanks" is what people meant. What the majority seem to be expressing is the addition of hybrid classes that could fill 1 of 2 different rolls in the Duty Finder. Such as a tank queuing as either DPS or a Tank. People want some classes to have abilities that would allow them to be either role.
Or the other option being the addition of ACTUAL support classes. Thus ADDING to the trinity system classes that can buff or aid in crowd-control or just generally support the party. They would not necessarily be deemed a DPS class as their dmg output would be far lesser, but the utility they'd bring to the party would make them a unique addition and sought after role in a party. So instead of having the current Duty Finder party of "1 tank, 1 heal, 2 DPS", you could have 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DPS AND 1 support class OR 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 DPS and 1 Support class.

For an example of this, look at FFXI. They had tanks, healers, and DPS, but they also had support classes with jobs things like Corsair, and Bard. Those classes didnt do much damage on their own, but their unique support abilities brought much needed utility to the party. For example, they had things like exp points buffs, haste, regens and stat buffs, debuffing of enemies (slow, poisons, etc), sleep spells, bind spells, etc. Certain classes have buffs like this in XIV, but its usually just one or two supportive abilities per class (BRD mana/foe song, DRG's Battle Litany, BLM's Lethargy, etc). We'd like to see some job(s) implemented that take a variety of these abilities and put them into one single job and add another role (support class) to the Duty Finder making the new DF light party "Tank, Healer, DPS & Support".

[Soralis]

Oh Vespar yes i would like the support classes like that. I wanted bard to be more support oriented for instance. But tell me regarding hybrid classes, do you think similar to wow style?, like a white mage should have a tree branching in 1 direction to heal and in another to dps? i would like that as well, or black mage branching into fire and ice or lets say arcane? sorry i guess i didn't understand the thread as i thought i did. ^_^, if you ment it like that then i am for it. i would like a bit of diversity.

[Vespar]

snip

I'm not certain that they could bring in skill "trees" now as the game was never designed for branching skill trees, but perhaps they could have an ability that could toggle you into a different skill set. So if you wanted to, as a healer or tank, queue as a DPS instead you could turn on this ability and you'd have access to a DPS-ing skill set. While entering the dungeon you queued for that skill-set switching ability should not be able to be turned off. Keeping you in the role you queued for, for the duration of the dungeon. (This is just an example I came up with, but it could work in theory) Obviously not ALL jobs can allow for this. For example classes that were always intended to be DPS and nothing but like DRG, MNK and BLM probably wont have the ability to swap into a different role. But classes like SCH, AST, WHM, WAR, PLD, DRK, etc could swap into another role.

Personally, I prefer the addition of support roles instead. Less confusing and easier to implement. This would add diversity and complexity to the game without having to seriously add to or overhaul classes that are already present.

[Felis]

But tell me regarding hybrid classes, do you think similar to wow style?, like a white mage should have a tree branching in 1 direction to heal and in another to dps?

If you replace white mage with character, then yes, we have this already.

maybe the devs should just remove the whole job system and go back to the "build your individual class yourself with mixing skills from other classes" philosophy that we had during 1.0

I would absolutely love support jobs to be put in the game!! they are my favorite and it makes me so sad there isnt any in this game

Astro is a good support job, that can heal

[SendohJin]

Should it adopt the model where every class is self-sufficient?

the self-sufficient model is kind of contradictory to being able to play all the jobs on a single character. it's good that the jobs are well defined, that gives people more reason to play multiple jobs on one character which is a big feature of the game.

[Iromi]

I would absolutely love support jobs to be put in the game!! they are my favorite and it makes me so sad there isnt any in this game

[Vehementi]

This all works well in theory. Even works when implemented for a time. However Funcom learned quickly it was pointless. With Secret World it was meant to be a classless system. There was meant to not be any holy trinity. But every Beta. there would be recruiting for "DPS, HEALS AND TANK".. Then release came.. Annnd everyone fell back to the holy trinity.