Matchmaking without the Trinity: how would you do it?

[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?

[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.

[Zojha]

I would disagree that it is as simple as you are making it out to be.

On that, we will have to agree to disagree, because IMO, it really is that simple "on principle" and yes, mechanics can be just as complex and difficult. You can have the same effect you're describing with the MP supply by simply having a damage reduction song instead. It's the same on principle. The mana song supplies the healers with mana and those in turn convert it into HP for the party. A damage reduction song would reduce the damage the boss does and thus increase the effective HP of the party. It doesn't matter because it's interchangeable, as it all fulfills the same purpose - increasing the effective HP of the party so that the boss needs to do more damage to deplete it. On the meta level, the game is only about health and damage - whoever depletes the others HP pool via damage first wins.
Although I admit with how powerful healing is in this game, you'd have to make substitutes completely ridiculous to achieve the same effect - it's just that strong. I'd also note that the positioning would be the same in either case - it would just be the currently aggro'd player doing the positioning (whoever that would be), rather than the dedicated tank.

Have you played Guild Wars 2?

Yes, though only for a fairly brief while after hitting the level cap due to horizontal progression boring me to no ends. And I found that the encounters weren't very well designed for the combat system they had. That's why I bring up a mechanic heavy fight like A11 - I didn't find anything of the kind in GW2. Instead, I found simple bosses that had strong unavoidable autoattacks that I had to kite endlessly. Most of the mechanic indicators were very vague, if existent at all. And all of it coupled with a much lower rotational complexity.

Yes, I agree - it was dull. But I disagree on the reasons as to why it was. Content doesn't need to be simple to work without the trinity - it just can't have lots of unavoidable damage. The epitome of trinity combat design is tank and spank, the epitome of trinity-less design is bullet hell.

[Yellow]

Tank, Damage, Healing, Support.

[Telsyr]

The only solution I see would be to re-think the dungeons and add a 5 member with a support slot like Rift did (they have 5 men team instead of 4).
Considering the amount of work it would be to balance everything I would go with

Except that it would take even more work and time to balance everything around 5 people, including older content.. they would have to change everything to fit the new style of 5/10/30 Meaning tacking MORE HP to already over inflated bullet sponge bosses we already have. More damage from bosses means each tank class has to be re-balanced to be able stand their ground and all DPS get a nerf due to adding more roles and the fact that support increases DPS all around.

Tank, Damage, Healing, Support.

I can just smell those 1-3 hour 4-man queues now. Thats only for healers.. DPS will be worse as we'll be waiting for all those supports, that are going to be rarer than tanks, to show up.

[Connor]

I can just smell those 1-3 hour 4-man queues now. Thats only for healers.. DPS will be worse as we'll be waiting for all those supports, that are going to be rarer than tanks, to show up.

Not really sure where this assumption that a 'support' role would be played by such a tiny percentage of players that it would cause the entirety of the Duty Finder to become near-inaccessible. XIV has a pretty big playerbase and as long as they developed a support role to be fun and worthwhile I don't think it would be as bad as people assume. Not saying it wouldn't increase the wait times, but nobody can know for sure unless they actually implemented it, otherwise it's just theory. The entire thing could be circumvented by having support and dps sharing the same slot in 4/8 man parties. They've already split Melee / Ranged so it's not impossible for them to have different levels of the same slot / role.