Matchmaking without the Trinity: how would you do it?

[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.

[Bdyer]

1 pld, 5 warriors sch and Ast?

[MomomiMomi]

2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 dps, 1 support/wild card. Adjust accordingly for each type of content, e.g. 1 tank for 24 raids.

That's really the only change I'd like to see. A support role. I realize this requires more balancing on the devs' part. I still want it, though.

[Connor]

2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 dps, 1 support/wild card. Adjust accordingly for each type of content, e.g. 1 tank for 24 raids.

That's really the only change I'd like to see. A support role. I realize this requires more balancing on the devs' part. I still want it, though.

I'd probably go into a fit of ecstasy if they done this lol. All I've ever wanted from the devs is to add a real support role instead of just 'dps with utility that's not actually support but somehow gets painted as one'. Not to mention this would allow for Archer and Machinist to become actual ranged dps instead of poorly thought out 'hybrids' they are currently. Tbh though, I don't think enough people want a real support role to warrant it. That said, there's honestly no way of knowing unless they actually did it, because the OF's aren't exactly representative of the community as a whole

[Hestern_Nestern]

How would I do it... {Hmmm.}

I've had some thoughts on the matter, recently. Well, for starters, I enjoy the trinity system. However, I think it would be cool if each job had a secondary role they could queue for. Bards could queue dps or healer, summoners can queue dps, or tank (I say tank because the oft neglected Titan-Egi), and so on. In their secondary role, their trait window would change to accommodate that role's needs. Mayhap the trait, A Song Of Fire, causes flaming arrow to take on an asylum-like effect, for example. Bard's would also need some kind of healing-over-time song, and perhaps the Warden's Paean shifts into an at-will esuna, with the added bonus of blocking the next effect as well. Perhaps, also, bard would lose one class' crossclass skills, and have crossclass skills from CNJ added to the mix. Just some ideas. Now for a list to sum up what I am trying to say:

1) every job is given a secondary role they can switch to (outside of battle in the open-world, not at all in instances)
2) the classes they can take crossclass skills from change, or at least one of them does
3) a separate trait window for the secondary role handles modification of existing abilities to better fit that role's needs
4) they can only queue as one of the roles at a time, thus keeping to the trinity, while adding role options
5) new abilities could be introduced for the secondary role, maybe, though my preference is modifying current spells, skills, and abilities

for some added fun:

Summoners, when tanking, need a holmgang/hallowed ground/living dead. This is what I came up with:

Summoner's secondary role trait window gains the trait, "Earthly Tether" on Tri-Bind. Using what we now know as Tri-Bind, on their titan-egi, Tri-Bind splits the summoner and the egi's hp between them, while making it so that neither one of them can die while the other yet lives, and that healing abilities on the egi also heal the summoner, and healing abilities on the summoner also heal the egi.

Obviously, each primary role skill would have to be closely looked at and balanced for the secondary role, to keep any job from being too powerful as a secondary role. I thought maybe they could implement the secondary role system for dungeons and such at first, then move on to allowing EX primals and 24-man raids/8-man raids afterward, once all things have been properly adjusted for smaller stuff.

[Dreamsoap]

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.

I'm 100% with Kaurie on this. I tried really hard to make my guardian into a "healer" because I chose the class for that fact: I wanted to play supportive. But... it's useless.
I got tired of GW2's lack of trinity because you couldn't be anything other than what felt like a very weak DPS.


It's not that I don't think it can be done. But I've played games where even though they had a holy trinity, they didn't restrict gear to classes and had a myriad
of stat types. Just messing around with a calculator, you could get some really interest hybrid builds. It was fun running around as a plate wearing mage killing
all the armoured dps, while having such a high def they can't do a thing to dent your hp.

[loreleidiangelo]

I've never been able to play an MMO that doesn't have the trinity. Everything always boils down to ping-reliant i-frame twitch gaming or self-heal potion-chugging zergfests. {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.}

EDIT: why does giving each class unique niche utility somehow translate into people wanting a removal of the trinity, OP? Not sure how you made that logic leap there.

[SendohJin]

2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 dps, 1 support/wild card. Adjust accordingly for each type of content, e.g. 1 tank for 24 raids.

how would support function in 4 man content? do they get preference in one of the DPS slots? are their support abilities magnified in smaller groups?

[Launched]

I wouldn't. You've seen PotD: it has pretty much no mechanics besides dodging aoes because the content has to be designed to be completed by 4 dps.

[Tremara]

Why do some people want to remove the holy trinity? I don't get it but unfortunatly it seems to be a trend ... some new MMOs removed the healer/tank so everyone is basically a dps.
In the forums of said MMO I found a statement of a player who said that he doesn't want to depend on other players help. Why bother playing a MMO at all?