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

[Kuwagami]

I have a solution in mind. Leave things as they are for solo play, but when in a party make tanks tankier (increase damage resistance and aggro multiplier), and do less DPS (reduce attack potency), make Healers healier (strongerbuffs and heals) and do less DPS (reduce attack potency), make DDs stronger (increase potency of attacks), but squishier (decrease damage/status resistance.

This restores DD to the correct place in a party, while at the same time compensating tanks and healers by strengthening their respective roles. Since this is a buffonly when in a party, it doesn't alter solo capability, but for group play it encourages the trinity and knowing your role.

I gave a thought to it after reading you, but I can't see it working any different than what we have now. Tanks would still maximize their dps as much as they can (and that would just make it harder for them than now because they already don't have hate issues, except PLD), healers would have more time to do nothing (stronger heals mean more uptime for other stuff, but you nerf this other stuff), and DDs would just die quicker to everything thrown at them in raids.

The problem lies in the core of the system in my opinion, and you'd need to rework it entirely to either enforce the current system by making the DD heavy on the utility part (to justify their lack of significant output compared to the tanks) and thus have roles which are balanced in their output but bring a different input for the party (tankyness, heal and support), or to get rid of it and return to the basis with the DDs having the only significant dps of all the jobs.

Like this for example :

I am one of the people who believe the traditional trinity idea doesn't apply to this game, due to exactly your points on the roles, and who hopes that 4.0 will bring more utility to the damage dealer class, allowing them to expand on their role as more than just a damage dealer(like the old Bard LBs, 1 bar gave a damage boost to all party members, while 2,3 bars gave raid wide heals)

No matter which side you're going to, you're pissing off a bunch of people though.

[DPZ2]

The problem lies in the core of the system in my opinion, and you'd need to rework it entirely ...

Reworking the game entirely to mitigate or eliminate Tank/Healer/DPS would mean writing a new game with a different feel to it. To this point I have not seen a successful reworking of the Trinity that still felt like an MMO. Anytime you have an instance/encounter where damage needs to be either mitigated or healed, you invoke the Trinity.

There are nice systems that allow you to change your part in that triangle by using different weapons (GW2), but game designers always appear to think world encounters should be punishing engagements where death is always one failed heal away.

I haven't encountered any persistent world FPS yet, so maybe that genre would fit the bill.

[Kosmos992k]

I gave a thought to it after reading you, but I can't see it working any different than what we have now. Tanks would still maximize their dps as much as they can (and that would just make it harder for them than now because they already don't have hate issues, except PLD), healers would have more time to do nothing (stronger heals mean more uptime for other stuff, but you nerf this other stuff), and DDs would just die quicker to everything thrown at them in raids.

I understand. Let me explain what I was thinKing in those terms specifically.

The idea was to make tank and healer DPS small enough that is comparatively inconsequential compared to DD DPS. DDs become more powerful, but weaker in defense requiring more support from tanks and healers. Healers may have better output, but with fragile DDs they need to focus on healing more, tanks too need to help with mitigation where possible. So both healer and tank end up sharing the load of party support in addition to their primary role, giving DDs a clear road to do their thing.

You identified a problem with the homogenization of damage dealing in FFXIV, I think it's a big problem, because it really diminishes the power and role of DDs.

Imagine battles where PLD *has* to use cover to protect a BLM or SMN, or perhaps even a DRG, whereshields and other mitigation effects from tank/healer skills are absolutely needed to mitigate damage on DDs so the healers can keep up. By making DDs more fragile, it's more important that the tanks hold aggro andpick up adds, so they have better aggro multipliers. Pushing DD DPS higher and otherrole's DPS lower, you create the differentiation that makes each role special and different.

If healer/tank DPS is low enough, they will not be able to prevail without DDs, and so they must protect the DDs, heal them, and even raise them, in order to complete a fight.