The Daily Grind: Should the MMO holy trinity be a thing of the past?

@(Unverified)
Take out the trinity and all you have is another bad shooter.

@jondifool
I don't think we need to identify the problem but instead the need that the holy trinity fills. The holy trinity creates a need to cooperate. Without a system in place that builds inherent weaknesses and strengths for all players no one will rely on anyone else. The only group advantage in a game with no set roles is multiplication of DPS.

Now this type of co-op is possible and can be seen in many non massive games such as shooters like Gears of War. However the down side is that you will always be responsible for yourself in the same way for all content in the game, which can become stale pretty quickly in a persistent game environment.

@Devotion

it's is exsactly answers like yours that make me state, that we need to identify the problem first!

because if this whole talk about getting rid of the holy trinity should make any sense then we need to realise, that removing it does NOT remove the need for coperation and the dependence that players have on each other fulfilling a role! because these things are NOT the problems of the holy trinity. Giving players a role is what the trinity does good.

I am afraid that this thread will fail in discuss the subjekt because it didn't identify the problem. And then misunderstood ideas like multiplikation of dps will florish!

If OP have gone into, the idea of a new trinity instead of the old "holy" then we could have discussed thesse new roles , and if they make more sense than the old!

Btw you can learn alot about what removing the trinity is about in this article.
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

@Devotion The advantage of grouping in a classless mmo could be multiplication of DPS or of XP or of loot or some other reward like in CITY OF HEROES.

@jondifool
Having read the link you provided I understand your opinion much better.

I support original and inventive games and systems in them, and I am personally very excited to play Guild Wars 2.

But to anyone that thinks specialisation is the devil that needs to be eliminated I have to say that you are short sighted.

An unoriginal title that is engaging is much better than an original one that falls flat on it's face.

@Ken from Chicago
I personally did not enjoy my time with CoH because it supported such open ended and generally vanilla content.

@jondifool

What I see as the problems with the holy trinity (or any other fixed role system):

- It forces specific group compositions, which can exclude players - with the usual healer, tank, 3 DPS party, it means two friends who both play as healers or tanks can not play together.

- It's a barrier to dungeon scaling. If the content is based on the existence of the holy trinity, any group size other than multiples of the basic "cell" become problematic. How to tune a 2-man dungeon? A 3-man? Will the 3-man enforce a tank, healer, DPS composition? and so on.

- The specific play style of the role usually does not become evident before the end game. It can mean a player might level a character, just to find he does not like it's play style.

- Often solo content is better tuned for one of the roles, leaving players of the other roles with a subpar experience.

- Multiple roles usually means specific gear for each role; with random drops, this means plenty of wasted gear, a thing that some players find highly irksome.

What I would like to see is either the fixed roles continuing, but with characters able to switch roles outside of combat (really liked both Rifts, where each character can keep up to 4 "specs" with different roles and each class can realistically fill most, if not all, roles; and GW2, which is promising all classes being able to fulfill all needed roles and respecs for free outside of combat); or else, classes with more similar capabilities, and the differentiation being made by encounter-specific tasks.

A third way is what SW:TOR seems to do: companions able to partially fulfill any role. So, if the group lacks a healer, just have everyone bring out the healing companion; if it lacks a tank, bring a pair of tank companions; etc.

@Seegrey In a way that's true, though you're forgetting one thing: Roles are generally defined by the npc's, not pc's. If you make mobs that don't adhere to aggro rules, instead following some sort of 'common sense' (IE: why pay any attention to a character which is hardly doing any damage to you), you add some tactics to the game that go above the holy trinity.

The trinity only works when the encounters are specifically designed for that (mobs with aggro table, tanks with aggro increase and dps with aggro decrease abilities). Once you throw all that out of the window and let players choose their own skillsets, just take a look at what emerges and do something with that.

@(Unverified)

Then you probably haven't specced Paladin.

@Dirame
Paladin can only self heal.

@drakon

THE MATRIX ONLINE with the ability to completely change everything about your character's play style and abilities would be the only game to not lock you into a class/ability set. Rift would be the next best, that I know of.