Matchmaking without the Trinity: how would you do it?

[dragonseth07]

Hello! Lots of people on these forums are eager for classes to break the mold, be more diverse, more buzzwords here. In short, they want to see a departure from the Holy Trinity of Tank-Heal-DPS.

Sounds great, sounds fun, sounds innovative. The issue is things like the Duty Finder. How do you put a funky hybrid class into the formula for making a balanced party?

I have no idea, which is why I posted this thread. If you were making a class for this game that broke the Trinity, how would you handle matched parties?

[Kaurie]

Guild Wars 2 removed the trinity. It was their worst mistake, in my opinion.

The end result? Everyone was a DPS with a few support abilities and the strategy for every fight was "Stack in the corner so mechanics can't hit you, wear only maximum glass cannon gear and DPS DPS DPS before you die". It made for very boring gameplay.

I would not like to remove the trinity. However, I'd be down with having a new role of support/utility and removing support/utility from current roles. I don't imagine that would be widely accepted though.

[SessionZero]

Guild Wars 2 removed the trinity. It was their worst mistake, in my opinion.

The end result? Everyone was a DPS with a few support abilities and the strategy for every fight was "Stack in the corner so mechanics can't hit you, wear only maximum glass cannon gear and DPS DPS DPS before you die". It made for very boring gameplay.

I would not like to remove the trinity. However, I'd be down with having a new role of support/utility and removing support/utility from current roles. I don't imagine that would be widely accepted though.

Ah, yes, I "fondly" remember the Berserker meta. Because that's why I picked the Guardian class. To DPS.

[Ageofwar]

I would like to point out that the trinity system is not used for Palace of the dead and..... some of the party for the higher floors can be quite crap when its like DPS, DPS, DPS, DPS

[Zojha]

Simply put: You don't.

Hybrids, by nature, cannot be as good as a specialist in their respective role without either giving up the capability to be good at anything else via specialization or being overpowered. And this means, they either aren't real hybrids, overpowered or they are undesired. The only solutions to that are to force the hybrid into the group mechanically - mandatory hybrid slot - or to give them a unique gimmick that makes them de-facto mandatory regardless of what else they do, like a healer LB3 on a 3 minute CD or massive support spells or whatnot.

Paladin is an example of a hybrid that is specialized in tanking. He can heal, sure, and he can DPS but you only really want him for tanking because that's the only field he's specialized and competitive in. For everything else, you rather take a different specialist.

The end result? Everyone was a DPS with a few support abilities and the strategy for every fight was "Stack in the corner so mechanics can't hit you, wear only maximum glass cannon gear and DPS DPS DPS before you die". It made for very boring gameplay.

Ironically, most of A11 would not play much different without the trinity. From the point of view of a DPS, propeller wind wouldn't change, ATM wouldn't, optical sight wouldn't, laser sword wouldn't, prey wouldn't, shield wouldn't, adds wouldn't and neither would photon. Are you sure it's an issue with the lack of trinity or are the fights maybe just boringly designed?

[Connor]

I think the game can be designed in a way that jobs can move away from the trinity without having to entirely do away with it altogether. As the previous poster said, Paladin is a good example of a job that, whilst not being limited to only tanking (it can heal, it can support the party defensively) still fits very well into the mold of a tank. Naturally there's problems with its design as well, but this more related to content design than the bigger picture of the 'trinity'. Technically you could argue that every dps (bar Monk, Black Mage and maybe Dragoon) is a support/dps hybrid anyway, since they all have equal amounts of utility.

[Saccharin]

Hello! Lots of people on these forums are eager for classes to break the mold, be more diverse, more buzzwords here. In short, they want to see a departure from the Holy Trinity of Tank-Heal-DPS.

Sounds great, sounds fun, sounds innovative. The issue is things like the Duty Finder. How do you put a funky hybrid class into the formula for making a balanced party?

I have no idea, which is why I posted this thread. If you were making a class for this game that broke the Trinity, how would you handle matched parties?

GW2 proved that the trinity is needed for interesting encounters.

[Kaurie]

Ironically, most of A11 would not play much different without the trinity. From the point of view of a DPS, propeller wind wouldn't change, ATM wouldn't, optical sight wouldn't, laser sword wouldn't, prey wouldn't, shield wouldn't, adds wouldn't and neither would photon. Are you sure it's an issue with the lack of trinity or are the fights maybe just boringly designed?

Are you saying that in A11 the tank does not hold agro on the boss and that healers don't heal at all?

Obviously, this isn't the case.

Consider A11, where the top DPS now holds agro instead and the boss is now bunched up with all of the DPS. The healing requirements are low, because there is no healer - and either the boss outputs considerable damage, where the only method to beat him is to find an exploit where it cannot physically hit you OR have it so it doesn't put out much damage. All the strategy involved is everyone go to town with DPS and positioning and teamwork is lost beyond that of exploits

[Zojha]

Are you saying that in A11 the tank does not hold agro on the boss and that healers don't heal at all?

Obviously, this isn't the case.

No. I'm saying that the only mechanic that necessitates healers is: Unavoidable damage.
And the only mechanic that necessitates a tank is: A large amount of unavoidable damage at a single person.

Consider A11 where the currently closest target in range is being attacked by an autoattack that just barely does more than you can self-sustain. All the mechanics are still in place and still do lots of damage if not done correctly but zero otherwise. What does that lead to? The only method to beat him is to do the mechanics of the fight correctly (Hide, dodge, activate, burn etc). All the strategy involved is precisely what you currently are supposed to do anyway, except that the "tank" regularly needs to be swapped by another DPS stepping closer to him.

Is any teamwork lost in the process? I argue no - to me, teamwork is human to human coordination (Such as the "don't get close" part of the judgement Nisi mechanic), not machine to human coordination (such as focus healing a tank buster/prey target). You don't even need to forego things such as positionals or synergy effects via disembowel. Healers and tanks only add unavoidable damage to the boss mechanic roster. And that's for a simple reason, too:
The only resource that matters is HP. The only way to reduce that resource is damage. The winning condition of a fight is to reduce the enemies HP before your own runs dry. Not just in this game - shooters, fighting games and many more work on the same principle. Healers add nothing to this system except increasing your own HP by their own mana pool times conversion rate. Tanks add nothing to this system except increasing the effective HP by reducing the incoming damage. Both exist solely to increase the HP pool the boss needs to deplete and in turn, they only add more damage to the boss to bring the equation back into balance. And unavoidable damage at that because otherwise good players would be inclined to just replace them with more DPS. That is all tanks and healers add to a game.

There also, naturally, is the satisfaction of different fantasies - some players just want to be sylphie, or that stalwart, impenetrable wall etc. But gameplay wise, healers and tanks add a lot less to a game than people give them credit for.

[Kaurie]

No. I'm saying that the only mechanic that necessitates healers is: Unavoidable damage.
And the only mechanic that necessitates a tank is: A large amount of unavoidable damage at a single person.

Consider A11 where the currently closest target in range is being attacked by an autoattack that just barely does more than you can self-sustain. All the mechanics are still in place and still do lots of damage if not done correctly but zero otherwise. What does that lead to? The only method to beat him is to do the mechanics of the fight correctly (Hide, dodge, activate, burn etc). All the strategy involved is precisely what you currently are supposed to do anyway, except that the "tank" regularly needs to be swapped by another DPS stepping closer to him.

Is any teamwork lost in the process? I argue no - to me, teamwork is human to human coordination (Such as the "don't get close" part of the judgement Nisi mechanic), not machine to human coordination (such as focus healing a tank buster/prey target). You don't even need to forego things such as positionals or synergy effects via disembowel. Healers and tanks only add unavoidable damage to the boss mechanic roster. And that's for a simple reason, too:
The only resource that matters is HP. The only way to reduce that resource is damage. The winning condition of a fight is to reduce the enemies HP before your own runs dry. Not just in this game - shooters, fighting games and many more work on the same principle. Healers add nothing to this system except increasing your own HP by their own mana pool times conversion rate. Tanks add nothing to this system except increasing the effective HP by reducing the incoming damage. Both exist solely to increase the HP pool the boss needs to deplete and in turn, they only add more damage to the boss to bring the equation back into balance. And unavoidable damage at that because otherwise good players would be inclined to just replace them with more DPS. That is all tanks and healers add to a game.

There also, naturally, is the satisfaction of different fantasies - some players just want to be sylphie, or that stalwart, impenetrable wall etc. But gameplay wise, healers and tanks add a lot less to a game than people give them credit for.

I would disagree that it is as simple as you are making it out to be. For example, a BRD can supply MP to healers while the DPS are learning a fight and taking extra avoidable damage. Healers provide buffers to DPS to learn a fight as they take avoidable damage. Without them, you will die sooner - the mechanics can't be as complex or difficult, or it would be deemed to difficult. A Summoner can use super virus to reduce damage to a tank buster or big aoe to help both the tank and the healer. The tank needs to position the boss, so melee can properly do their positional rotations. and so on.

Have you played Guild Wars 2? I do find it a difficult thing to explain, but Guild Wars 2 removed the Trinity and it made PvE content incredibly dull. It is the largest reason I am playing FFXIV (I jumped back and forth between both games a couple of years ago, before landing on FFXIV). It may be one of those things where it's hard to get it until you try it, and then you have that "ahhh" moment.

In essence, I think it comes down to difficulty and complexity of content. Without Tanks and Healers, content is made simple for the sake of balance - and thus is dull.