Feelings on FF14's Trinity System?

[Ardeth]

snip.

To be fair, the players did that. There's nothing wrong with identity in the trinity. There's something wrong when every design incorporates going as fast as possible as efficiently as possible. That's why tanks and healers are dps classes with extra steps. But the trinity is fine as it is. Like I said, every game that breaks from it eventually comes crawling back to it. Getting rid of it won't make them feel better. It always makes them feel worse. Being a "tank" in GW2 is the damn most unrewarding experience in life.

Personally, I think harder dungeons and more involved rotations removing the agro system of lack there of we have now is a move in a better direction. Make a mob of enemies threatening so the healer can barely dps instead of only dpsing. Giving players options to CC enemies and making the experience more of an experience and less of an endurance test to stay awake.

[Oizen]

My opinion on this is going to be fairly unpopular but...
I've generally been finding it the case that normal content is soley determined by the Tank players, while DPS and Healer are just sorta there. This is especially the case in normal dungeons where its the tanks job to do basically everything, healers are being made redundant, and dps just sorta press their AOEs. I honestly cant stand playing DPS in dungeons due to how brain rotting it is.

Likewise when I got into higher end content, I kept hearing how DPS is the hardest ever and Tank is the baby easy mode, then I actually played it and no it was basically more of the same, DPS get these awkward breaks between mechanics where their only job is to press their buttons, so if you're on a DPS where thats not demanding, which is more than people want to admit, then no I still think DPS is fairly easy. Easier than tank as a whole. But then it also depends on what job you're on, I don't think anyone would contest that GNB is harder than SMN, but I guess you could take it in inverse that BLM is harder than WAR. I generally feel like the game is heading in a direction where DPS are babied, DPS checks likely aren't going to be a thing again after Abyssos, Anabaseios was way easier to hit, Goblez and Zeromus have basically non-existent enrages.

Not trying to say Tank is hard or anything, I think its pretty obvious that tank is starting to become overpowered at its role, at least in terms of defenses. WAR speaks for itself, PLD is pretty insane, GNB and DRK are more inline with what a tank should be able to do but I doubt thats going to stay that way.

So my General thoughts are:
Tank is slowly being given basically all of the responsibility with the caveat that they're honestly getting overpowered defensively, and they're all starting to play the same.
DPS is allowed to be more unique from each other, but that seems to be the case because they're so interchangable that they almost lose impact entirely.

And god damn healer is a fucking afterthought in this game. Sometimes their roles are harder than tanks or dps, but when it is healers basically evaporate from PF in that content.
Later Abyssos fights had absolutely dreadfull fill times due to a steep healer shortage, so now we're in this weird limbo where healer is simultaneously boring/too easy but also if you make it more intensive and heal-check heavy people stop playing the job.


I like this game but its also giving me a lot of understanding why the Trinity is basically dead in any games beyond this.

[Moqi]

I don't think the Trinity is the problem, it's that they're designing all jobs to be the same in the name of absolute balance.

This is a game where multiple jobs share gear and you can play anything on one character. It's ok if some jobs are worse than others in some content and as they keep adding jobs, not every job is going to synergize well with every other. As long as any combination can pass content, I don't see why some can't be better than others, both in terms of personal and raid performance.

That said, most content seems to require 2 healers because they don't want people to wipe if the only healer goes KO and can't be resurrected, not because it actually requires 2. That sucks.

[Supersnow845]

To be fair, the players did that. There's nothing wrong with identity in the trinity. There's something wrong when every design incorporates going as fast as possible as efficiently as possible. That's why tanks and healers are dps classes with extra steps. But the trinity is fine as it is. Like I said, every game that breaks from it eventually comes crawling back to it. Getting rid of it won't make them feel better. It always makes them feel worse. Being a "tank" in GW2 is the damn most unrewarding experience in life.

Personally, I think harder dungeons and more involved rotations removing the agro system of lack there of we have now is a move in a better direction. Make a mob of enemies threatening so the healer can barely dps instead of only dpsing. Giving players options to CC enemies and making the experience more of an experience and less of an endurance test to stay awake.

“Removing the agro system”

My brother in Christ what do you actually want tanks to do at this point

The agro system is literally the last vestige of the blue role, remove that and there is nothing separating tanks from slightly garbage melee

[Oizen]

“Removing the agro system”

My brother in Christ what do you actually want tanks to do at this point

The agro system is literally the last vestige of the blue role, remove that and there is nothing separating tanks from slightly garbage melee

Well to be honest, Aggro and emnity has never been a good system in this game, and its basically never been the Tank's responsibility.
Even in the rose tinted glasses area of tanking, you'd maybe press the enmity combo once, turn off defense stance and only be in dps stance the rest of the fight unless some job specific mechanic made you get out of it.

Hell I'm pretty sure it ended up being Ninja's job to handle enmity.

[Supersnow845]

Well to be honest, Aggro and emnity has never been a good system in this game, and its basically never been the Tank's responsibility.
Even in the rose tinted glasses area of tanking, you'd maybe press the enmity combo once, turn off defense stance and only be in dps stance the rest of the fight unless some job specific mechanic made you get out of it.

Hell I'm pretty sure it ended up being Ninja's job to handle enmity.

So again literally what do you actually want the tanks to do (~~besides be the healer~~)

No enmity, basically immortal, a wealth of healing a defensives, a rotation that is far easier than the melee

What are even your responsibilities at that point, you are just playing an immortal melee DPS

[Ardeth]

“Removing the agro system”

My brother in Christ what do you actually want tanks to do at this point

The agro system is literally the last vestige of the blue role, remove that and there is nothing separating tanks from slightly garbage melee

Fating on enemies and holding agro forever is boring gameplay. You used to have to work for agro.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Without the trinity fights would have to change. Either every job can take any hit from the boss, or all big hits are avoidable. Tankbuster could no longer be a thing.

[Oizen]

So again literally what do you actually want the tanks to do (~~besides be the healer~~)

No enmity, basically immortal, a wealth of healing a defensives, a rotation that is far easier than the melee

What are even your responsibilities at that point, you are just playing an immortal melee DPS

Boss Positioning used to be fun until they decided melee downtime was illegal.

I still think proper mitigation cycling and optimization is fun, the problem is the discrepancy of outgoing damage in low end/high end content.
In high end content I actually think the current suite of mitigation is tested fairly well, WAR isn't as broken in single target situations, DRK's lack of sustain isn't an issue in raids
In low end content, Tank mastery (baseline 20% mit at all times) basically is all the mitigation you'll ever need forcibly baked in to the job, which I don't like and think the first step to fixing tank is removing this trait.

I mean to be blunt here, I think the dungeon gameplay and normal content in this game just sorta sucks, I avoid doing dungeons and roulette content whenever I can. To me, the best place where tank has ever felt properly tested is Criterion, especially savage and and no one does that.

[Ardeth]

Boss Positioning used to be fun until they decided melee downtime was illegal.

I still think proper mitigation cycling and optimization is fun, the problem is the discrepancy of outgoing damage in low end/high end content.
In high end content I actually think the current suite of mitigation is tested fairly well, WAR isn't as broken in single target situations, DRK's lack of sustain isn't an issue in raids
In low end content, Tank mastery (baseline 20% mit at all times) basically is all the mitigation you'll ever need forcibly baked in to the job, which I don't like and think the first step to fixing tank is removing this trait.

I mean to be blunt here, I think the dungeon gameplay and normal content in this game just sorta sucks, I avoid doing dungeons and roulette content whenever I can. To me, the best place where tank has ever felt properly tested is Criterion, especially savage and and no one does that.

Dungeons are the worst part of this game. Featureless hallways. People are playing on autopilot complaining when someone deviates.