[Poll] Previous roles and trinity vs non-trinity

[nightfalls]

for example: "Why is that big dragon attacking the most heavily armored player while he could easily deal with the group by immediately killing the squishy healers in 2 hits?". That part always bothered me.

Why do idiots always go for the Prot Warrior/Blood DK in random BG's instead of killing the 3 healers keeping him up? Same reason. Bosses are dumb.

[RoninaThorstone]

I need more data.

It's odd, you see so many DPS online, causing 45 minute queues, and yet they don't seem to make up much of the respondents.

Do tanks and healers use forums more?

[Fencers]

I need more data.

It's odd, you see so many DPS online, causing 45 minute queues, and yet they don't seem to make up much of the respondents.

Do tanks and healers use forums more?

DPS roles are mostly made of casual players, solo players and isolated (from forums, discussions, etc) players I imagine. DPS is the de facto role many take up when playing alone or casually as I have observed.

It's unlikely DPS players are the same type of players that are writing out the boss "strat" in chat, so to speak, with the same frequency of the healer and tank telling everyone what to do. Naturally because those roles (tank & healer) are more dependent on the cooperation of the team to accomplish a goal. They fight battles of attrition as a matter of course.

This is purely my own view based on experience, of course.

[Kelimbror]

Do tanks and healers use forums more?

It's an acceptable logical inference to think people more invested in games overall will play classes with higher investment as well. While it may not be an indicator of current preferences, which I will explain using myself, it's probably an indicator of their overall history. Ex: I played a tank in WoW until the last expansion where raiding became accessible and casual and I decided that was more inline with a DPS experience. So while I currently play DPS, and probably will going forward as a main focus, I've really been a tank for 8+ years.

[Tekkommo]

I like trinity, I think GW2 made a huge mistake.

[Sharuko]

I think non-trinity can work, with good AI. The problem is GW2 did non-trinity so badly that people are now scared of games with non-trinity systems. With that said, I prefer the trinity but would like to see non-trinity work.

[Valeron]

I can't play games with the trinity anymore, I hate it.

[Bigtimmy]

I need more data.

It's odd, you see so many DPS online, causing 45 minute queues, and yet they don't seem to make up much of the respondents.

Do tanks and healers use forums more?

I typically play DPS and have no strong preference for or against the trinity. I understand that you left that option out of the poll on purpose, but it's a perfectly valid response in this case. If you're actually interested in legitimate research, you shouldn't eliminate responses that are inconvenient for your purposes.

As to whether tanks and/or healers are more invested in games, I think that's an interesting theory. I agree there seems to be a more cooperative sentiment among those players, but I don't think it's necessarily tied to "investment." If you're talking about serious players, I think most of them are similarly invested across all roles. That is what my admittedly anecdotal experience has been, anyway.

If you're talking about casual or average players, then I'd expect more of them to choose a DPS role. Of course, most of those players don't tend to frequent a forum like this. Of those who do, I'd imagine most on this website don't venture far from the areas designated for WoW discussion.

[Kelimbror]

If you're actually interested in legitimate research, you shouldn't eliminate responses that are inconvenient for your purposes.

Research has to be narrow and as such the data required is only from people who have opinions of one way. Otherwise you could use this to justify having 100 choices in any poll, which would be silly and not informative. Limiting choices both barrows the response field appropriately and forces indecisive people to try and really think if they have a preference. Many times having an opt out choice results in high levels of opt out because it is easier than thinking about an issue.

[RoninaThorstone]

If you're actually interested in legitimate research, you shouldn't eliminate responses that are inconvenient for your purposes.

Actually, no. Part of good survey design is as much knowing what not to ask as is asking. Omission is used to force people to choose between the things you are trying to measure.

Granted, this is entirely informal as MMOchamp would be plague by severe sampling bias

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Research has to be narrow and as such the data required is only from people who have opinions of one way. Otherwise you could use this to justify having 100 choices in any poll, which would be silly and not informative. Limiting choices both barrows the response field appropriately and forces indecisive people to try and really think if they have a preference. Many times having an opt out choice results in high levels of opt out because it is easier than thinking about an issue.

KV always has such a way with words

[Bigtimmy]

Research has to be narrow and as such the data required is only from people who have opinions of one way. Otherwise you could use this to justify having 100 choices in any poll, which would be silly and not informative. Limiting choices both barrows the response field appropriately and forces indecisive people to try and really think if they have a preference. Many times having an opt out choice results in high levels of opt out because it is easier than thinking about an issue.

A Likert scale has 5 degrees for a reason. His options for each role are binary. I'm only suggesting there should be a third option for each role.

Let's not play the slippery slope here.

[Aliessil]

I generally play tanks, with the healer role taking the second spot. I've always preferred hybrid playstyles over the current Trinity system. I always loved the old feral druids which could tank or DPS at the drop of a hat. Healing was pretty mediocre but could do at a pinch while waiting for a healer to be ressed. Blizzard keep moving druids further from that point and pigeon-holing them more and more, and as they've done so I've enjoyed my druid less and less :-(

Healer-wise, I've always preferred disc priests and fistweaver monks - they can output some reasonable damage while light healing's needed, then ramp right up when the shit hits the fan.

I don't mind the idea of having a primary role, but give me hybrids over pure classes any day!

[Kelimbror]

A Likert scale has 5 degrees for a reason. His options for each role are binary. I'm only suggesting there should be a third option for each role.

Let's not play the slippery slope here.

He's not looking for degrees, but absolutes. As such a Likert scale is completely worthless to his desired responses. The poll could have been as simple as do you like trinity, yes/no and as complex as providing a Likert scale for each role, type of player, country of origin, economic situation, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc, etc, etc, etc. MMO-C is a rather small sample size as it is. Providing more choices will simply disaggregate the data to levels that render the attempted research futile.

[Orange Joe]

Just curious about this

For those who don't know. Trinity is the tank/healer/dps system like in WoW. Games like GW2, on the other hand, do not have a trinity.

Yes it does. They just fooled you buy calling them different names.

[Bigtimmy]

He's not looking for degrees, but absolutes. As such a Likert scale is completely worthless to his desired responses. The poll could have been as simple as do you like trinity, yes/no and as complex as providing a Likert scale for each role, type of player, country of origin, economic situation, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc, etc, etc, etc. MMO-C is a rather small sample size as it is. Providing more choices will simply disaggregate the data to levels that render the attempted research futile.

People do not operate based on binary absolutes. You're still using a slippery slope argument. I am simply suggesting that having no strong preference is a legitimate opinion in this particular case.

I will agree that this poll with its small sample size isn't going to show much of anything, so to some extent I understand the omission. I only made the comment because Bardarian said "I need more data," which indicated to me that he is genuinely interested in meaningful results. My actual job is academic research, so I thought I would offer some input.

[Fencers]

A Likert scale has 5 degrees for a reason. His options for each role are binary. I'm only suggesting there should be a third option for each role.

Let's not play the slippery slope here.

That's not a slippery slope. Bardarian and Kelimbror are actually correct. The choices presented are designed to yield specific data of a specific set of circumstances.

The structure of the poll options (such as MMO-C can allow) is sound. Expanding option beyond what is listed could/would either be data for a different set of circumstance (which may not be the poll creator's goal) or give unreliable data without an algorithm or mutually exclusive choice conflict.

Modern polling and surveying typically use logic algorithms as part what is called a Screener review to display an Incident of the Product (the actual thing you are polling is just a "product" effectively). Or sometimes called a Sign/Signifier. Older polling and survey methods used a praxis of mutually exclusive elimination to yield the same results as algorithms but it was just more time consuming (because you had to write it all out). Which again, may give data that is not even important to your investigation.

Yes it does. They just fooled you buy calling them different names.

Impossible. The gameplay (which is objective) would have to allow for exclusivity of role for this to be true. Gameplay does not allow such a thing in Guild Wars 1 or 2.

Your conception of role exclusivity is either faulty or incorrect. It can not be anything else factually.

[Valeron]

Yes it does. They just fooled you buy calling them different names.

so it has a tank, healer, and dps?

[apepi]

Healers like the trinity the most? color me surprised....

[Orange Joe]

so it has a tank, healer, and dps?

It has controller (tank) Damage (dps) and support (healer) classes.

[Sooba]

Healers like the trinity the most? color me surprised....

Probably because most methods of avoiding the trinity revolve around breaking dedicated healing.