The trinity, party responsibility, and how to try and improve the game from within

[Lexia]

Yoshi-p too worried about keeping everything balanced and fair for anyone to actually make the trinity system you know a true trinity system and not a poser system, by the player base definition healers shouldn't even be called healers just support role.

[Kaurie]

I honestly think this is the biggest weakness of not having specs and using stances instead. Specs you'll need to turn off/on before content, whereas as stances allow for stance dancing mid-combat.

In WoW, for example, you could level up as a Shadow Priest in solo play, and then swap to Holy/Desc for healing in late game.

If we had something similar, a WHM could spec for ClericStance for open world content, but then respec for Healing in grouped content. Their DPS would be abysmal in the healing spec, and it would be useless; however, when in open world they could respec for DPS.

[DPZ2]

OP writes: "Putting the debate itself aside, what we can see is that there are essentially 2 types of players : those who expect people to do their best, and those who don't care as content is cleared within the (generous) dungeon timer."

Your two types of player are actually more like 8 types of players, but we'll go with two for now.

The first type is much more interesting. These are what I consider the true semi-professional gamers --- those who see the game as a contest pitting their own skills against the game. Anything less than "the best" reduces their own value in this contest. They have a point.

Unfortunately, with great skill comes great temptation to let players who are not at their best know it. In. no. uncertain. terms.

Being great at playing a video games does not necessarily equate to having great people skills.

When that happens, the term "jerk" is sometimes appropriate.

[Iagainsti]

It's sad to see ppl so against a non linear trinity system. Great example was the myth farm back in 2.2; my party consisted of 2 whitemages, a blk mage and myself on War and we would clear bray hm 2/3 in 9 minutes thanks to whitemages aoe. It made my teammates feel like they were playing actual badasses. I don't understand why those that enjoy a more traditional trinity not choose to play a game that caters to this, and leave this breakthrough on the norm to those that enjoy it.

[Lexia]

If people are in premade groups they can set how they think everyone in the party should play but if you in DF you should know you walking into randomness of people with all different play styles some may play like you other may play a style you hate so going through DF is like rolling dice on what kind if players you going to get as teammates

[StrejdaTom]

The game doesn't punish anyone for not being responsible about his role and if it accidentally does, it get's fixed (read nerfed) soon. This way you cannot build responsibility or correct mindsets.
8man raid excluded from my statement.

EDIT:
do what you can to increase your damage output
kill things as fast as you can do
always strive to increase your skill, as the party is dependent on it to clear content

You cannot get these 3 points from majority, when game doesn't punish you from playing under-average. In other games if you don't try, you die. Here we really don't have a type of content that would make you think "wow, I need to step up my game."
Again 8man raid excluded.

I just dont think that it is enough for a game to consist of 95% faceroll and 5% do something content.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

The game already has an easy system. Tanks and Healers do do less damage then DD's. A lot of Damage Dealers are just very lazy and can't put out the numbers they should be putting out.

Damage is too important in this game, honestly. That is the real issue.

[DPZ2]

A lot of Damage Dealers are just very lazy and can't put out the numbers they should be putting out.

Opinion noted.

Do you have solid numbers for every class at every level wearing appropriate gear in an appropriate instance to back it up?

Present it in an Excel spreadsheet and then we can discuss whether your opinion is backed up by evidence, or if it is purely anecdotal for some relatively small sample size.

[Serious question] do you consider yourself a semi-professional gamer? I've found that those who want to be the very best tend to get frustrated when everyone cannot rise to their level of expertise.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Removing DPS checks from raids/groups would be a long time improvement to the life of the game. Enrage timers and such are just bad game design.

[Kaurie]

Perhaps there is a language barrier, and I'm sorry for using a word that may not be as known to people with ESL.

A norm is not an enforced rule, but is merely a typical set of behaviour adopted by the public.

From Merriam Webster:
Simple Definition of norm
norms : standards of proper or acceptable behavior
the norm : an average level of development or achievement
the norm : something (such as a behavior or way of doing something) that is usual or expected

Or here is a more detailed definition:
a principle of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/norm