Holy Trinity: Arena Net gets it

[Karoht]

What that does is foster community. You will actually play with your friends and guildies instead of some random player who you won't speak to and will never see again.

Actually, playing with a small group of friends and NOT interacting with others outside such a clique is in fact the opposite of community.

End game raid bosses do require teamwork - usually. But end game raid bosses are only 1% of WOW content. The other 99% of WOW doesn't require teamwork, nor does it encourage it. To be truthful, WOW actually discourages teamwork all the way up to level 84.

Going by hours played, one can spend less than a week going from 1-85. One can spend weeks at 85 doing group content. I don't get how you call end game bosses 1% of the content, when it is considerably more. 1-85 is less than 25% of the content, and that is counting the low level dungeons.

Also, raid bosses require teamwork in ways that have nothing to do with the holy trinity... the reason there is teamwork in raid fights isn't because of the holy trinity specifically.

I never said that the teamwork was due to the trinity itself, though the interactions are very much present.

but when I look at GW2 and I see an elementalist make a wall o fire and a ranger shoots arrows through it that catch ablaze, that's f@$king teamwork.

No different than that Warlock you main throwing Curse of Elements and then any casters doing additional damage as a result. The difference is the implimentation, and it is a very cool one in that example, but the end result is the same. The elementalist was probably going to put up the fire wall because it was already in her self-interest to do so. The ranger was shooting things because it is in his self-interest to do so. In both cases, the goals overlap. As others have pointed out in the thread, overlapping goals do not equal teamwork, in this case it remains true.
Even if it wasn't in the elementalist's self interest to put up that firewall, it becomes part of the groups interest to have it up, just like any other buff/debuff. It increases damage, thereby killing the boss faster? Yeup, better put that up and keep it up for the rest of my team. That isn't really anything new, but again, clever implementation is clever and I would like to see more of that particular kind of implementation for buffs and team tactics, no matter what game we are talking about.

@karoht: I main a warlock. I never interact with the healers. Unless you count me soul stoning them when they die. I also never interact with the tank. He turns the boss away from me and I smack it's ass.

If you're standing in the fire, those healers are very much interacting with you. And when you burn adds so they don't kill the healers, you are covering them, thereby interacting with them. Also, I could list a few boss fights where your warlock is probably more instrumental to the kill than normal (ICC-Tanking the Shadow Lance guy on Blood Council as a Warlock, High King Maulgar back in Gruuls Lair, Opera Event in Karazhan).


@Fencer
You may want to read up on how much tanks are changing in the upcoming expansion. Also, WoW has done fights without aggro tables in the past (Faction Champs in ToC) and trust me, everyone in my raid was tanking (taking damage and mitigating it as best they could with personal cooldowns, evasive abilities, kiting, etc), healing (personal cooldowns, passive healing, healing other players with active abilities), snaring and CC'ing with anything they could muster, and inflicting damage. It was a cluster f bomb, but people did it.
WoW has done it. In theory they could do more of it.

[Fencers]

@Fencer
You may want to read up on how much tanks are changing in the upcoming expansion. Also, WoW has done fights without aggro tables in the past (Faction Champs in ToC) and trust me, everyone in my raid was tanking (taking damage and mitigating it as best they could with personal cooldowns, evasive abilities, kiting, etc), healing (personal cooldowns, passive healing, healing other players with active abilities), snaring and CC'ing with anything they could muster, and inflicting damage. It was a cluster f bomb, but people did it.
WoW has done it. In theory they could do more of it.

No need. Talking about the points the guy raises in the video that there is no teamwork in group play due to the trinity system. What happens in MoP is not germane to that conversation.

Most raid mechanics support the class system Blizzard uses. To say one isn't working in a team because individual party members are confined a singular role is foolish.

Way off-topic, but yea. That video is junk, IMO.

[Ynna]

I think it's interesting to see an MMO without the Holy Trinity, but honestly, I don't think it's that big a deal. As Fencers has said, it's just a design decision, which isn't good or bad in and of itself.

And for me personally, it won't make much of a difference, since I'll gravitate towards a heavy-support-type gameplay and will build/equip my character accordingly.

[Jovanaar]

People be people, some like the change some don't, It's just useless to discuss this endlessly about what's good or what's wrong, everything has been said already... for dozens of times. So could you guys you know... let it go?

[semantic]

..., WoW has done fights without aggro tables in the past (Faction Champs in ToC) and trust me, everyone in my raid was tanking (taking damage and mitigating it as best they could with personal cooldowns, evasive abilities, kiting, etc), healing (personal cooldowns, passive healing, healing other players with active abilities), snaring and CC'ing with anything they could muster, and inflicting damage. It was a cluster f bomb, but people did it.
WoW has done it. In theory they could do more of it.

That is right on the button now that you bring it up. When that fight goes bad, nobody asks how the healers screwed up, or what the tank was doing wrong. The question is: OK, how can we approach this more intelligently? I think this is what ANet is going for as a fundamental design goal in their group encounters. Call it teamwork or hivemind or groupthink, w/e. Rather than looking around for the individual who failed to execute their particular mini-game correctly (within the context of the raid team), players should start thinking in terms of how to get the most out of everyone present.

[Snow White]

I really am looking forward to players being responsible for themselves in the midst of combat. I can't tell you how many players I have carried through content over the years but I now have chronic back pain. :P

I never did like the holy trinity and I'm glad it wont be around in GW2. Needing a specific class or role to complete a dungeon and waiting hours to find one means you have a broken system IMO. Holy trinity is dated and I don't think we'll see it for much longer.

[Borzo]

Uh, you are working toward the same goal. The healer and tank classes can not sustain themselves indefinitely. They need damage dealers to kill the group's adversaries. As damage dealers need tanks to soak, healers to replenish.

I am working toward an independent goal by shooting arrows into the thing killing my tank? That doesn't make any sense. We are only there collectively working toward that goal; killing the dragon thingy.

Let me state it again: You are all working towards the same goal, but you are doing it independently - that is not teamwork. Teamwork requires interacting with each other.

For example: The CEO, an accountant, and a programmer can all be working at the same company, working on the same project at the same time. But if they work in different cities, different offices, and never communicate or speak to each other, then they are not participating in "teamwork". They have independent roles that they perform without interacting with each other.

Don't agree with this. Leveling is a small process of the game. The majority of time is spent in groups in order to progress beyond the cap. Which is the crux of the game.

This is your own personal opinion, this is not a fact. Just because you allocate your time in a certain way does not mean other's do to... nor does it mean designers of the game did so as well.

I suppose there are those who spend more time fishing or collecting Brewfest mounts than in group play. Whatever.

So you're dismissing anyone and everyone who disagrees with your own personal opinion as invalid. Whatever.

This is... not good. Um, threat tables? Crushing blows? Hard Enrage? Drains? Adds? Soft Enrage? Focus fire? Kill orders? Those are mechanics specifically built for the trinity system to handle.

Threat tables? Yes that's designed with the holy trinity in mind.

The other things on your list have nothing to do with the holy trinity. You can have crushing blows, hard enrages, drains, adds, soft enrages, focus fire, kill orders, etc, all in a game like Guild Wars 2 that has no holy trinity.

---------- Post added 2011-12-20 at 08:17 AM ----------

I don't get how you call end game bosses 1% of the content, when it is considerably more. 1-85 is less than 25% of the content, and that is counting the low level dungeons.

Less than 25% of content? Are you sure?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Zones_by_level

and

http://www.wowwiki.com/Instances_by_level

and

http://www.wowhead.com/quests?filter=minrl=1;maxrl=84

compared to

http://www.wowhead.com/quests?filter=minrl=85;maxrl=85

all disagree with you.



ETA: I find it quite humorous, but also slightly disturbing, how some people try to tell other people how to play a game "correctly". As though their vision of the game they are playing is the only "right" way to play a game. It's pretentious, arrogant, naive, and extremely self-centered.

[Durzlla]

Let me state it again: You are all working towards the same goal, but you are doing it independently - that is not teamwork. Teamwork requires interacting with each other.

For example: The CEO, an accountant, and a programmer can all be working at the same company, working on the same project at the same time. But if they work in different cities, different offices, and never communicate or speak to each other, then they are not participating in "teamwork". They have independent roles that they perform without interacting with each other.



This is your own personal opinion, this is not a fact. Just because you allocate your time in a certain way does not mean other's do to... nor does it mean designers of the game did so as well.



So you're dismissing anyone and everyone who disagrees with your own personal opinion as invalid. Whatever.



Threat tables? Yes that's designed with the holy trinity in mind.

The other things on your list have nothing to do with the holy trinity. You can have crushing blows, hard enrages, drains, adds, soft enrages, focus fire, kill orders, etc, all in a game like Guild Wars 2 that has no holy trinity.

---------- Post added 2011-12-20 at 08:17 AM ----------



Less than 25% of content? Are you sure?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Zones_by_level

and

http://www.wowwiki.com/Instances_by_level

and

http://www.wowhead.com/quests?filter=minrl=1;maxrl=84

compared to

http://www.wowhead.com/quests?filter=minrl=85;maxrl=85

all disagree with you.



ETA: I find it quite humorous, but also slightly disturbing, how some people try to tell other people how to play a game "correctly". As though their vision of the game they are playing is the only "right" way to play a game. It's pretentious, arrogant, naive, and extremely self-centered.

Sorry to say it man, but if you think raiding in WOW, the game that balances everything around PVE and destroys pvp to do so, has less than 1% of the game as raiding you're horribly mistaken...

Are there a lot of quests and lowbie stuff for people that aren't lv 85? Yes, but the second you ding 85 you're not expected to do ANY of that content. At 85 you're thrown into either PVP or Raids with the crafting profs as side things like when you're waiting for heroics..

@Fencers, I know what you're saying, but from all the time i've played wow (POST BC) it didn't feel like teamwork. The lines between dps, healer, and tank became to defined in wrath, and even more so in cata. Back in Vanilla/BC when hybrids were still, well, hybrids, it felt more like teamwork cause if the tank died a hybrid, or hell i've seen a void walker jump in and tank before in AQ25!! Or if a healer died someone else with heals could jump in and fill the role. THAT was more like teamwork.

However now, it's more everyone just kinda stands in their designated spots and plays their "minigame" as someone else had put it. SWTOR though feels much more like Vanilla wow, and from the few hours of beta i played (up to about lv 12 or 13) it felt very teamworky, as a councilor i tanked for a bit when the tank died. And as my agenti was the last man standing on a few bosses and had to kite the guy around the room, and barely made it out alive!!

[goneloco]

rly looking forward to gw2 but the lack of a dedicated healerclass sucks imo.

[Edge-]

Less than 25% of content? Are you sure?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Zones_by_level

and

http://www.wowwiki.com/Instances_by_level

and

http://www.wowhead.com/quests?filter=minrl=1;maxrl=84

compared to

http://www.wowhead.com/quests?filter=minrl=85;maxrl=85

all disagree with you.

Add the level 60 dungeons (Strath, UBRS, Scholo, and DM I think) to the "end game" list, because it was "end game" at one time. Do the same thing to all the level 60 raids, all the level 70 dungeons and heroics as well as the raids, and all the level 80 dungeons and heroics as well as the raids. The numbers are VASTLY different then. Just because it's no longer end-game content doesn't mean it wasn't end-game content at one point. You could technically get away with removing the 5 mans, but even then you still have a much larger percentage of the game than you think.

[Vlad Morbius]

The lack of trinity is one of the driving reasons many will be playing. This particular mould of MMO has all but been forgotten and to be quite honest it has always been far more engaging to me than the current slew of trinity based games. I have always felt that my characters were so limited in a trinity based game, and to that end so was my gaming experience. It thrills me to think I can jump on and into virtually anything at anytime with GW2 and that freedom is what kept me playing AC for a decade.

Some people thrive in a trinity based game and for those that do I say great, there are many out there for you to play, but in the end it is long past due for one that doesn’t take the same path. I know that once I get a taste of that freedom again, everything else will pale in comparison to me.

[Ghul]

trinity sucks and theres some huge need for a revolution in mmo-gaming! go for it guys and good luck!

but still one of the biggest flaws of mmo's is always going to be the lack of immersion in story and the ever repeating endgame until some new content comes around and the repetition starts again.

[Lefuu]

^ I assume it'll be extremely fast and easy to find or form groups because you'll be able to get anyone in and succeed..
Gotta love the flexibility.

[Ynna]

Really looking forward to gw2 but the lack of a dedicated healer-class sucks imo.

Well, the developers had good reason to remove dedicated healing from the game. They also said that, in general, most people who like healing don't really like the healing (I don't completely agree with them on this point) but are really more into supporting and helping their teammates in succeeding. Most people who like healing (and want to do something similar in GW2) will end up with a heavy support-focused build. (The Guardian profession is the most obvious, but each class is capable.)

[Queen of Hamsters]

I love the roles in WoW, and I love the LFG. I play all roles and I especially enjoy druid tanking, priest disc healing and hunter MM dps. That's WoW, and I'd be PRETTY sour if they one day decided to rework their system and not allow these roles in THEIR game.

In GW2, I look forward to a difference in roles, more self-dependant fighting and all that jazz.

One does not exclude the other, and I sure as heck do not hope WOW adopts anything from GW2 because then there wouldn't be 2 great MMOs for me to enjoy anymore.

Arena.net have their ideas for what will work for their game...doesn't mean they're the ones with the only right way of designing a game. These topics often reminds me of religious discussion.

And to everyone trying to say that there's no teamwork in WoW...have you ever raided? To get the highend rewards in pvp and pve, you need a good team and teamwork. GW2 will have tons of solo content, and the events and dungeons will require teamwork in coordination, attacks/buffs used etc etc...where's the difference?

GW2 and WoW = 2 different games, and that's the way it should be.

I also laugh everytime someone says that LFG ruined the community in WoW...before LFG, I had my guild and about 10 friends I did content with. After LFG, I had my guild, my friends AND the pug people to do content with...before LFG I saw horrible behaviour, after it I also saw it. The times I encounter real asshats in-game, I'm usually not in a dungeon but just standing somewhere/doing dailies/farming.

LFG didn't ruin the community, if anyone feels that way then they're either very VERY needy (iow they need constant chatting with people they never see anyway) or they simply do not remember the reality back before LFG.

[Borzo]

Add the level 60 dungeons (Strath, UBRS, Scholo, and DM I think) to the "end game" list, because it was "end game" at one time. Do the same thing to all the level 60 raids, all the level 70 dungeons and heroics as well as the raids, and all the level 80 dungeons and heroics as well as the raids. The numbers are VASTLY different then. Just because it's no longer end-game content doesn't mean it wasn't end-game content at one point. You could technically get away with removing the 5 mans, but even then you still have a much larger percentage of the game than you think.

This is a partially valid point, I'll give you that.

But what percentage of people in Vanilla were successful raiders? What percentage of players made it to Naxx? I'm too lazy to find it but the according to the blue-tracker it was tiny (eg 1%). That's changed in recent times, but near the beginning of Cata there was a blue post or discussion panel about the percentage of players that actually do raids, and it was definitely in the minority. Whereas the number of people who did 5mans was significantly greater. I can fish out the references if necessary, but I'm pretty sure most people would agree as they remember these posts and comments from Blizzard themselves.

Up until the LFR recently, the majority of players didn't do anything in WOW (an MMORPG!) that required teamwork in a combat setting. I think part of the problem is the holy trinity. I think 90% of the video I posted accurately shares my opinion as well. At least in GW2 you'll be tossed into a teamwork setting right from level 1. How this will pan out is anyone's guess, but GW2 is a game designed from the outset to require teamwork to succeed. Everyone has the tools to help each other -- something that can't be said for a game like WOW that has such a rigid trinity separation between classes/specs.

ETA: Also wanna say (unrelated to this) that I think it's great the GW2 is getting rid of mob-tagging. I hate mob-tagging. It's the most anti-teamwork & anti-social system I can imagine. It actually actively encourages people to stay as far away from each other as possible! Mob-tagging, I hope I never see you ever again!

[Fencers]

Let me state it again: You are all working towards the same goal, but you are doing it independently - that is not teamwork. Teamwork requires interacting with each other.

Let me state again: This is BS.

It is a team effort. One isn't more a part of the team because they are swapping between DPS/Heal/Tank/CC. Which the video author posits.

Within Warcraft some classes have a singular group role. That singular role is dependent on the other 2 components of their class system most often for group play.

The author admits this. Even says this is a good thing, frequently excellent in fact. But he misses the days when he could off-heal, tank, or DPS which made him feel like a boss- uh yea, foolishness.

This is your own personal opinion, this is not a fact. Just because you allocate your time in a certain way does not mean other's do to... nor does it mean designers of the game did so as well.

I am pretty certain the experience of playing Warcraft is refined and balanced by it's developers for high level play.

Pardo more than likely isn't sitting around saying, "Guys, we need to balance the level 22 gameplay experience. Post haste~!"

Blizz balance for their PVE/P endgame. Where players have the full brunt of their skills and abilities. Anything below that is essentially a tutorial in 2nd era theme park MMOs.

Time spent in dungeons/raiding and preparation for dungeons/raiding far exceeds that of blowing through Aerie Peak in an hour & half. Unless they are bad players... but I don't think there is anyone so bad on average at Warcraft they would be stuck in Aerie Peak for more than a day. Where as on average, one would be in Sunwell, Nax or Karazhan* for /played weeks.

*Back when these were new I suppose. I don't have a L85 and still going through pre-Cata. It's only been a few months. No high level raiding for me yet.

The other things on your list have nothing to do with the holy trinity. You can have crushing blows, hard enrages, drains, adds, soft enrages, focus fire, kill orders, etc, all in a game like Guild Wars 2 that has no holy trinity.

There is no instance in which those mechanics in Warcraft are brought to bear in which the class system is incapable or unable to deal with those mechanics. Those mechanics are almost always dealt with specifically by the existence of the of the 3 roles in the raid.

Why are you speaking about those mechanics in other games? Within Warcraft's class system, which is the point of discussion here, those mechanics are handled often by singular role(s) within Warcraft.

A threat wipe can exist under any class system. But in a trinity system a tank would have the tools to specifically deal with such a mechanic.

PM me if you wanna talk about this! We are way off topic here. :P

[Klahkeme]

Well the thing is, once they realize they CAN heal and do SUPPORT they're still not happy. Often the discovery that you can't even target your allies is quite a shocker for them.

When probed and asked, they say they NEVER wanna do any DPS, not even accidentally, and really, they just wanna play whack-a-mole and not have to worry about anything else (like many healers in WOW).

This is obviously a generalization based on personal experience... but 8 of the 10 people I've spoken to who said they did NOT wanna play GW2 were healers who didn't wanna do anything but whack-a-mole. That's the only thing they found fun about being a healer in WOW. (Blows my mind... but people are all different I suppose.)

Here's the only reason I enjoy healing, and I'd wager the reason a lot of people want to only heal and never do anything else. When you're a healer in WoW... you don't really need to learn fights. With few exceptions, there's nothing a healer needs to really know going into a fight in order to successfully heal it. DPS need to know mechanics and what is going on for every fight, as do tanks, but healers - we just watch health go down and make it go back up.

That said, the simplicity is the only reason I like healing. I think it's boring and welcome a non-holy trinity game.

[Ynna]

Here's the only reason I enjoy healing, and I'd wager the reason a lot of people want to only heal and never do anything else. When you're a healer in WoW... you don't really need to learn fights. With few exceptions, there's nothing a healer needs to really know going into a fight in order to successfully heal it. DPS need to know mechanics and what is going on for every fight, as do tanks, but healers - we just watch health go down and make it go back up.

That said, the simplicity is the only reason I like healing. I think it's boring and welcome a non-holy trinity game.

As a long-time healer in every game I play cooperatively, I just can't agree with that. Healers need to deal with almost every mechanic DPS has to deal with, healing flow and unpredictable human error. If all you're doing is watching health go up and down, you're a terrible healer. Most healers heal because they enjoy the challenge, the resource-management and the human factor. I've heard people say they think healing is easy, but I've never heard someone say they like it because it's easy.

[Deleted]

As long as "heavy supporters" don't stand at the back doing nothing but putting an aura/wall on the floor every 15 seconds, it's all cool with me. You will have to get into the fight with your teammates, or you won't be supporting them at all.