Goblin Squad Member
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As long as characters have strengths and weaknesses, specialization will occur.
Specialization is fine. But I don't know that we're going to inevitably specialize as tank/heal/dps. I would dearly love to see the *dependence* on certain roles go away.
If a healer can keep a fighter alive while he's getting hit by restoring hit points, a wizard-type should be able to do the same by shielding him from the damage in the first place, or by debuffing them. Perhaps a thief-type could be as effective by tripping the mob, etc.
There's a lot of room for innovative ways for other archetypes to be effective at, in essence, reducing or countering damage input, regardless of who it's aimed at. I'm not very creative, and I can think of quite a few :)
The key, to me, is the ability to put together a group based on people you want to play with, rather than roles you need to fill.
Strengths and weaknesses don't have to fall in line with the Trinity.
Being good at damage doesn't have to mean you are bad at mitigation (Barbarian, Fighter). Being good at control doesn't mean you have to be bad at healing (Cleric, Druid).
There are going to be decades of real-time worth of skills and abilities in the game. We don't know what they will be or how they will be segregated, beyond knowing there will be archetype paths. We can't say what weakness a strength will give us.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan's comment about people playing FPSs. I'm sorry but most FPSs have absolutely no relevance to the MMO PvP. They are two totally differ horse of two totally different colors... in fact one is camel. FPS matches are quick (rarely more then 30 minutes) sides are often scrambled at then end to distribute "better/weaker" players to help balance play, and you can always quite and join a different server/match. There is no true "loss" of gear/stats/etc.
There is another difference between FPS and MMO games and I find it quite interesting: a player in a FPS gets better at the game by actually playing. In current incarnations of most MMOs a player improves by crunching numbers, watching online videos, reading blogs, discussing on forums etc.
One is more fun than the other for the majority of people I would think.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Strengths and weaknesses don't have to fall in line with the Trinity.
Being good at damage doesn't have to mean you are bad at mitigation (Barbarian, Fighter). Being good at control doesn't mean you have to be bad at healing (Cleric, Druid).
There are going to be decades of real-time worth of skills and abilities in the game. We don't know what they will be or how they will be segregated, beyond knowing there will be archetype paths. We can't say what weakness a strength will give us.
I agree with your point: There is no reason that being particularly good at one aspect should mean that you are particularly bad at a specific different aspect. There isn't even a reason why two characters of the same archetype who both specialize in the same thing need to have the same weakness.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would prefer they kept the trinity, I had tons of fun tanking in WoW and I would hate to think that wouldn't be possible in PFO.
I had a lot of fun tanking in WoW, too. But I also was aware that, because I was a tank, I had a unique perspective. I never spent more than 15 seconds waiting in queue for a group. I know dps characters who waited 30 minutes or more on average.
That system was great for tanks. For the rest, not so much.
I fully expect I'll get the same good feelings in PFO, it just won't be for the same reasons. I can't imagine PFO won't have some way for Paladins to Stand Tall In The Dark and protect the other characters in their party...
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is another difference between FPS and MMO games and I find it quite interesting: a player in a FPS gets better at the game by actually playing.
One other difference is that there aren't very many older people playing FPS games. They don't have the coordination and "twitch" reflexes the younger people do. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about :)
I don't expect to see it in PFO, but I would really like to see a significantly disabled person (think Stephen Hawking) be able to play my ultimate MMORPG. After all, that could most certainly happen at the tabletop. It's all about choosing the character you want to play, and making the decisions you want them to make in real time. It's *not* about being able to click faster, or move the mouse with more precision.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There is another difference between FPS and MMO games and I find it quite interesting: a player in a FPS gets better at the game by actually playing.One other difference is that there aren't very many older people playing FPS games. They don't have the coordination and "twitch" reflexes the younger people do. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about :)
I don't expect to see it in PFO, but I would really like to see a significantly disabled person (think Stephen Hawking) be able to play my ultimate MMORPG. After all, that could most certainly happen at the tabletop. It's all about choosing the character you want to play, and making the decisions you want them to make in real time. It's *not* about being able to click faster, or move the mouse with more precision.
MMORPG players improve by playing as well. The skillset that improves is more decision-making and anticipation than twitch reflexes, although some level of reflex is still required (hitting the wrong hotkey will mess you up)
I would prefer they kept the trinity, I had tons of fun tanking in WoW and I would hate to think that wouldn't be possible in PFO.
I had fun tanking in WoW too.
But you know what I have more fun doing? Tank/heal/DPSing.
The two factors that instigated this thread were a WoW forum post on the topic "get rid of tanking," and my experience two-manning leveling dungeons with my wife. My wife hates healing. She also hates tanking. She "just likes to kill." We tried a druid tank/heal duo for a while, but she quickly got bored, so we moved on to a hunter duo and a DK duo. Both are perfect for her--she gets to pretty much just dps. For me, this means in both combos I am the tank/healer.
On the hunters, this was really easy. Tank pet, appropriate pet oriented talents and glyphs, constant mend pet, and judicious use of misdirection and feign death.
The DKs were tougher, mainly because I had to learn the class. But after some gearing up and figuring out how to mitigate and heal myself with my rotation at need, this became easier.
There are other combos we haven't tried, but the examples suffice. These classes have everything they need to accomplish what we wanted--tank-ability, self-healing, CC and other utility that are unique in execution and in keeping with the flavor of the class.
This is sort of what I want from PFO, except to take it even further, I don't want to be guaranteed aggro. I want all the tools I need to situationally tank a boss for a short period of time, and then I want the boss to pick on someone else, forcing me into a new role. Or, not necessarily a new role. I could help whoever has aggro somehow. Maybe with my shield. If I'm mitigating damage done to whoever has aggro, am I not still tanking?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with your point: There is no reason that being particularly good at one aspect should mean that you are particularly bad at a specific different aspect. There isn't even a reason why two characters of the same archetype who both specialize in the same thing need to have the same weakness.Strengths and weaknesses don't have to fall in line with the Trinity.
Being good at damage doesn't have to mean you are bad at mitigation (Barbarian, Fighter). Being good at control doesn't mean you have to be bad at healing (Cleric, Druid).
There are going to be decades of real-time worth of skills and abilities in the game. We don't know what they will be or how they will be segregated, beyond knowing there will be archetype paths. We can't say what weakness a strength will give us.
Right,
I actualy want to see roles/specialization in the game, I just don't want to see them broken down in the rather tired and oversimplistic slots that encorporate the Trinity.
For example "Fighters" should be reasonably good at both dealing damage and defending against purely physical threats. That holds true to the spirit of PnP rules. In tabletop play you don't generaly see someone say
something like "Aww heck, that's a tough looking orc....Fighter you stand there and do nothing but annoy it...so the Mage can kill it with spells." Fighters are reasonably good at dealing damage to purely physical opponents as well as defending against them
At the same time, there is now reason why a Mage or dedicated spellcaster should have to be vulnerable against threats that are largely magical in nature. A Wizard should be fairly good at defending against things like Wraiths or Shadows, etc in addition to just doing damage.
My biggest problem with the Trinity is that it really doesn't allow for those sort of nuances in play.....so every character ends up being a one trick pony regardless of what they are facing....that is never forced to adjust strategy based upon the situation or the opponents faced. It allows for very little variety in gameplay...and very little depth of strategy involved in combat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think this whole discussion goes hand-in-hand with allowing open (uncapped) progression. I've always hated the Talent Tree from WoW, where I basically have to pick a single role and specialize in it, without having the ability to quickly change my focus.
Give us the option to train skills to deal with a variety of situations, and please don't ever "cap" us so that we can only "equip" a certain set of skills at a time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think this whole discussion goes hand-in-hand with allowing open (uncapped) progression. I've always hated the Talent Tree from WoW, where I basically have to pick a single role and specialize in it, without having the ability to quickly change my focus.
Give us the option to train skills to deal with a variety of situations, and please don't ever "cap" us so that we can only "equip" a certain set of skills at a time.
Nihimon,
I don't think it involves that at all. There is no reason that your character should be as good (or better) at being a "Fighter" then the guy who sets out to make the "BEST Fighter" in the game AND at the same time as good (or better) at being a "Wizard" then the guy who sets out to make the "BEST Wizard" in the game.
(IMO) that's just bad game design and removes the idea of choices in character building being meaningfull.
I want to see a design where the choices the player makes in building the character are MEANINGFULL and if a player wants to be strong in one area it comes at some cost/sacrifice in another area.
That doesn't mean that the "Generalist" shouldn't be a viable character build. It means that the "Genarilist" should never be the equal of the Specialist IN THE SPECIALISTS CHOSEN AREA OF EXPERTIESE.... what the "Generalist" brings to the table, which should be very important is ADAPTABILITY and the capacity to fill multiple roles and change the role they are functioning in AS NEEDED.
All that's needed for that to happen is to remove the perfect predictability that dominates so many MMO's today.... so that you don't know with absolute certainity when you walk into Dungeon X that you are going to need a Druid not a Rogue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am not sure because I agree with both of you and do not see the conflict....If someone wants to be the best fighter ever and they have been grinding fighting skills for 3 years, then they should be the best fighter they can be in 3 years. Same with the wizard. If I have been grinding for 6 years, then I might be as good as both of them...however, I hope we can also distribute attribute points once in awhile (and those should be capped). The pure fighter will add everything to Str, the wizard Int...and me the generalist will have spread them out, so I may be able to use the same skills, but I will never have the power of the pure fighter, or the number of spells as the pure wizard.
In my opinion, the only cap should be time and there should be no reason you cannot specialize or generalize...forever. I hope there are base skills that can be taken over and over that increase specialization by simply increasing damage with 1 type of weapon by a fraction of a percent each time...or increases the power of a type of spell.
But, I agree with and look forward to the long training time...(I would have doubled the time).
Returning to the idea of the trinity, I actually see it as crowd control, dps, and healing. Allowing us to branch out into other trees without penalties gives us the adaptive generalist as you suggested. And this will allow us more freedom to fill those roles...even fluidly doing so within a team/group.
Having a mage summon an illusion that cc is as good as a tank...as is a rogue who can block the path and is nimble enough to not get hit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am not sure because I agree with both of you and do not see the conflict....If someone wants to be the best fighter ever and they have been grinding fighting skills for 3 years, then they should be the best fighter they can be in 3 years. Same with the wizard. If I have been grinding for 6 years, then I might be as good as both of them...however, I hope we can also distribute attribute points once in awhile (and those should be capped). The pure fighter will add everything to Str, the wizard Int...and me the generalist will have spread them out, so I may be able to use the same skills, but I will never have the power of the pure fighter, or the number of spells as the pure wizard.
In my opinion, the only cap should be time and there should be no reason you cannot specialize or generalize...forever. I hope there are base skills that can be taken over and over that increase specialization by simply increasing damage with 1 type of weapon by a fraction of a percent each time...or increases the power of a type of spell.
But, I agree with and look forward to the long training time...(I would have doubled the time).
Returning to the idea of the trinity, I actually see it as crowd control, dps, and healing. Allowing us to branch out into other trees without penalties gives us the adaptive generalist as you suggested. And this will allow us more freedom to fill those roles...even fluidly doing so within a team/group.
Having a mage summon an illusion that cc is as good as a tank...as is a rogue who can block the path and is nimble enough to not get hit.
KitNyx,
Because I'm dealing with the you can progress 20 levels in any one class....get your capstone ability...and then you could move on to another class to work on capstone for it...dynamic that Ryan described in his blog. That implies to me...once you reach 20th level in a class...you aren't improving upon that classes capabilities/combat power any more.
If that's not the case...and you continue to advance in your class abilities past 20th...then we open up a whole different can of worms....which is how do you make the game accessable to players that have only been playing for 2 years when you have guys that have been around for 6?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ah right...well I agree, but I hope they take that into consideration (which, I suppose is why you are addressing it...to insure it is not forgotten). This is actually a problem I have been thinking about since I played EVE way back when...the only solution I could think of is that increasing skills may give you small fraction of a percent bonus to your standard abilities, but the difference between a level 20 and level 1 output should not be huge. What being level 20 does give you is additional flashy skills...and skills with less drawbacks.
To explain by example, two swordsmen, one level 5, one level 20 - both have the same strength and hence same base damage output. Fred, level 5 has just got access to cleave, but when he uses it, his defense is lowered for 10 seconds because of the awkward position he finds himself in during and afterwards (for any enemy who may still be standing before him). Joe on the other hand, was able to take master cleave at level 19 (this is the best cleave, with a few intermediate skills). This cleave does the same positive as cleave, and requires the same "expenditure" (stamina/energy/focus) but only lowers his defense for 2 seconds, and only half as much. This is due to his increased combat awareness and better body control (through training/experience). Additionally, master cleave looks much fancier...perhaps with a glittery weapon path.
If necessary, both warriors have the same damage output, one just does it "better" and smarter. Therefore, either would be usable in a given role and with luck and skill, the level 5 warrior could even beat the 20 in a duel. (Speaking of which, in true Grecian fashion, the effects created by even standard combat on a battle field would draw high powered individuals together...because their skills are all accomplished with lots of flourish...they would be hopefully fun to watch.)
So, increasing skills gives you access to more abilities and refines the ones you have. Harvesting skills would allow you collect more difficult resources as well as doing old ones more efficiently.
I do however, think some of the base skills for each class, such as "Sword Training" for a warrior which may be available at level 1 and should be a prerequisite for later skills...should be infinitely advanceable, but it should have diminished returns. This allows you to continue upon a single path for a character if that is what you wish...into extreme specialization, while also not making you game-breaking powerful.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Why not implement old age and age categories, as well. Perhaps accelerate time 15x, so that after 6 years, the human will have died of old age, and the elves will just be hitting their prime.
or ~30X, giving the humans the effect of the candle burning at both ends, and each season lasts three days real time?
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Goblin Squad Member
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You know alot of times MMO gamers tend to have blinders on about just how shallow and limited the Trinity is in terms of representing combat dynamics. They may want to repackage or tweak the Trinity but often have trouble wraping thier heads around how the basic system itself can have entirely different dynamics then are represented by the Trinity. One of the things that I think really illustrates how those dynamics can be different is to look at the factors and roles involved in real world conflict....
You have Offensive Capability ("FirePower") - Which represents the ability to damage/destroy the opposition. This is one of the roles represtented by the Trinity..DPS. Although in real conflict the capability is highly dependant upon the situation and the opposition. For example things can have excellent Offensive Capability against soft targets (i.e. infantry) but absolutely no capability of damaging hard targets (i.e. armor), etc.
You have Defensive Capability - Which represents the ability to avoid being destroyed/knocked out of action by the opposition and preserve your presence on the battlefield. This probably represents the Trinity role of Tank and possibly Healer as well. Again in real conflict this capability is highly dependant upon the situation and type of attack being faced (i.e. Infantry operating in denses wooded terrain against AT defences actualy acts as protection (i.e. "the Tank" role) for armor...whereas in open terrain against small arms defences armor is protecting infantry instead).
You have Combat Intelligence - Identifying the enemies capabilities, disposition and placement on the battlefield so you can forumalte an effective plan of engagement. Not represented in the Trinity model
You have Counter-Intelligence - Confounding the enemies ability to gain valuable information about your forces so he cannot formulate an effective plan of battle or deliberately causing the enemy to accept FALSE information so that he formulates a plan that ends up helping your operations. Not represented in the Trinity.
You have Command & Control - Forumalting an effective plan of battle, communicating that plan to all the different combat elements involved in the engagement and coordinating the actions of those elements so they can work effectively with one another and react to changing battlefield conditions. Not represented in the Trinity.
Disruption - Disrupting your enemies Command and Control system so he can't effectively organize his forces to engage you in a coordinated fashion. This doesn't even neccesarly involve direct attack...and can include stuff like signal jamming or relay of false orders. Not represented in the Trinity.
Manuver - The ability to move your forces on the battlefield to where they need to be in order to best engage the enemy. The best intelligence and best plan of action are worthless if you can't get your forces to the right place at the right time to execute them. Not represented in the Trinity.
Logistics - Getting your forces the resources they need in order to operate at peak efficency. Ninety percent of large scale conflicts are won or lost based upon logistics. Not really represented in the Trinity...although you could maybe argue the Healer plays a fringe role here.
Interdiction - Preventing the enemy from getting the resources he needs to his forces in order to prevent them from operating at peak efficency.
Area Denial - Preventing the enemy from utilizing or manuvering into an area of the battlefield in order to limit his options for engagemention.
Not represented in the Trinity.
Suppression/Fire Support/Smoke - Attacking the enemy not to damage/destroy but to harras and prevent them from effectively attacking/targeting your forces. You could maybe consider the Tanks aggro abilities or other classes debuff abilities as one form of this role.
These are just a FEW of the important factors/roles that occur in real conflict. Most of them aren't represented at all in the Trinity and the ones it does model are represented in an extremely limited, narrow, simplistic and static fashion. Those are just considering real world examples...not even some of the things that enter into play when Magic is involved.
I hope folks can start to get an idea of all the other sorts of roles that can be central to combat that don't at all represent the Trinity.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Following up on my previous post. I just want to illustrate one small example of just how central and important roles that fall outside of the standard Trinity model can be in combat.
Lets go back to the historical battle of Agincourt(1415 AD). Yet lets place it in a World where magic actualy exists (as it does in Pathfinder) and pretend the French have a high level Wizard with them. What happens?
The ground gets dried by a spell and the French Warhorses are no longer hindered and slowed by charging up a slope slippery and thick with mud. They have firm footing to keep the momentum of thier charge.
The English now face a gale force wind blowing directly in thier faces (another spell) greatly hindering the accuracy and range of thier longbow volleys. Meaning not much damage inflicted on the charging French cavalry before contact...and possibly even the longbowmen loosing the archery duel with the Genoese Crossbowmen in the opening phase of the battle.
The stakes that the English set out before thier positions to fend off charging horses are now transmuted to snakes and slither off harmlessly away. Nothing to break the impetus of chargeing cavalry now stands between the French and the dismounted English.
Just as the French manuver thier forces to attack...a 2nd strong Column of French Cavalry (Illusion Spell) is spotted in the English rear, readying to charge...and the English now don't know which direction to face.
Finaly just as the battle is joined the Coat of Arms of France appears in the sky above the startled English formed of brilliant golden light and accomponied by a chorus of heavenly trumpets and flying Cherubim (another Illusion).
Look what just happaned to the engagement....and yet not a single direct attack spell was used...not a single "taunt" or tanking ability employed...not a single hit point healed. Not a single aspect of any of the traditional Trinity roles are involved....yet the entire course of the battle is changed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Following up on my previous post. I just want to illustrate one small example of just how central and important roles that fall outside of the standard Trinity model can be in combat.
Lets go back to the historical battle of Agincourt(1415 AD). Yet lets place it in a World where magic actualy exists (as it does in Pathfinder) and pretend the French have a high level Wizard with them. What happens?
The ground gets dried by a spell and the French Warhorses are no longer hindered and slowed by charging up a slope slippery and thick with mud. They have firm footing to keep the momentum of thier charge.
The English now face a gale force wind blowing directly in thier faces (another spell) greatly hindering the accuracy and range of thier longbow volleys. Meaning not much damage inflicted on the charging French cavalry before contact...and possibly even the longbowmen loosing the archery duel with the Genoese Crossbowmen in the opening phase of the battle.
The stakes that the English set out before thier positions to fend off charging horses are now transmuted to snakes and slither off harmlessly away. Nothing to break the impetus of chargeing cavalry now stands between the French and the dismounted English.
Just as the French manuver thier forces to attack...a 2nd strong Column of French Cavalry (Illusion Spell) is spotted in the English rear, readying to charge...and the English now don't know which direction to face.
Finaly just as the battle is joined the Coat of Arms of France appears in the sky above the startled English formed of brilliant golden light and accomponied by a chorus of heavenly trumpets and flying Cherubim (another Illusion).
Look what just happaned to the engagement....and yet not a single direct attack spell was used...not a single "taunt" or tanking ability employed...not a single hit point healed. Not a single aspect of any of the traditional Trinity roles are involved....yet the entire course of the battle is changed.
If they truely allow and get illusions to work in this way in a game, and if they make most of those roles possible you listed, this will be the best game ever. I completely agree with you on almost all of these points. Especially the logistics and resources things, with easily destructible equipment etc.. even crafters with a wagon full of spare weapons could be key priorities to victory, and figuring out how to get them close to the front lines without getting clobbered would be an interesting twist.
Espionage and counter espionage would be awesome, that would be insanely awsome if a good enough wizard could create an illusionary decoy of their army a fair distance away from it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they truely...Following up on my previous post. I just want to illustrate one small example of just how central and important roles that fall outside of the standard Trinity model can be in combat.
Lets go back to the historical battle of Agincourt(1415 AD). Yet lets place it in a World where magic actualy exists (as it does in Pathfinder) and pretend the French have a high level Wizard with them. What happens?
The ground gets dried by a spell and the French Warhorses are no longer hindered and slowed by charging up a slope slippery and thick with mud. They have firm footing to keep the momentum of thier charge.
The English now face a gale force wind blowing directly in thier faces (another spell) greatly hindering the accuracy and range of thier longbow volleys. Meaning not much damage inflicted on the charging French cavalry before contact...and possibly even the longbowmen loosing the archery duel with the Genoese Crossbowmen in the opening phase of the battle.
The stakes that the English set out before thier positions to fend off charging horses are now transmuted to snakes and slither off harmlessly away. Nothing to break the impetus of chargeing cavalry now stands between the French and the dismounted English.
Just as the French manuver thier forces to attack...a 2nd strong Column of French Cavalry (Illusion Spell) is spotted in the English rear, readying to charge...and the English now don't know which direction to face.
Finaly just as the battle is joined the Coat of Arms of France appears in the sky above the startled English formed of brilliant golden light and accomponied by a chorus of heavenly trumpets and flying Cherubim (another Illusion).
Look what just happaned to the engagement....and yet not a single direct attack spell was used...not a single "taunt" or tanking ability employed...not a single hit point healed. Not a single aspect of any of the traditional Trinity roles are involved....yet the entire course of the battle is changed.
The length editor cut this quote off at a good point...to answer the question, I would buy it too. Let's just hope.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they truely allow and get illusions to work in this way in a game, and if they make most of those roles possible you listed, this will be the best game ever. I completely agree with you on almost all of these points. Especially the logistics and resources things, with easily destructible equipment etc.. even crafters with a wagon full of spare weapons could be key priorities to victory, and figuring out how to get them close to the front lines without getting clobbered would be an interesting twist.
Espionage and counter espionage would be awesome, that would be insanely awsome if a good enough wizard could create an illusionary decoy of their army a fair distance away from it.
Yeah, even something like allowing a Rogue/Ranger type ability where you click on a creature/object/player activate an ability and get more detailed information on it then is displayed in the UI for other characters.
So every schlub on the planet see's "Orc" in thier UI which clicking on that Orc looking object on thier screen.
High Level Ranger/Rogue sees "Orc Ranger, Level 10, high Fort save, low Reflex, Flame-Retardent Armor, currently equiped orchish shortbow - range 20 yds, bodkin arrows".
That should be relatively cheat resistant since the client only needs to know enough to draw an object...not what that objects capabilities are.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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You know alot of times MMO gamers tend to have blinders on about just how shallow and limited the Trinity is in terms of representing combat dynamics. They may want to repackage or tweak the Trinity but often have trouble wraping thier heads around how the basic system itself can have entirely different dynamics then are represented by the Trinity. One of the things that I think really illustrates how those dynamics can be different is to look at the factors and roles involved in real world conflict....
Most of what you listed there is tactical and strategic options, not roles in combat. I don't think we need only three roles, and I don't think that each character should fill only one role at a time. I also don't think that a barbarian rager should be able to use subtle misdirection tactics. Heavy cavalry is not nterchangable with light infantry, even if both are intended to do damage.
I love the concept of giving the players of more perceptive or knowledgeable characters ore information.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You know alot of times MMO gamers tend to have blinders on about just how shallow and limited the Trinity is in terms of representing combat dynamics. They may want to repackage or tweak the Trinity but often have trouble wraping thier heads around how the basic system itself can have entirely different dynamics then are represented by the Trinity. One of the things that I think really illustrates how those dynamics can be different is to look at the factors and roles involved in real world conflict....
While your breakdown makes perfect sense for large scale real-life conflict, it doesn't really work as well on the small scale that tabletops and MMOs run on.
You have Offensive Capability ("FirePower") - Which represents the ability to damage/destroy the opposition. This is one of the roles represtented by the Trinity..DPS. Although in real conflict the capability is highly dependant upon the situation and the opposition.
As you said, DPS. I totally agree that it would be nice to have different classes able to DPS to greater or lesser extents depending on what the target is. You might need a mage to do damage to the wraith, and a fighter to kill off that golem.
You have Defensive Capability - Which represents the ability to avoid being destroyed/knocked out of action by the opposition and preserve your presence on the battlefield. This probably represents the Trinity role of Tank and possibly Healer as well.
Likewise, the mage and rogue might have a better defense against the wraith (either from dodge bonuses or force armor) than the fighter, while the fighter can absorb a hit from the golem easily. Also, healers/damage preventers.
You have Combat Intelligence - Identifying the enemies capabilities, disposition and placement on the battlefield so you can forumalte an effective plan of engagement. Not represented in the Trinity model
This is the player. Do you know what that monster is you're facing? Are you paying attention to where characters are positioned?
You have Counter-Intelligence - Confounding the enemies ability to gain valuable information about your forces so he cannot formulate an effective plan of battle or deliberately causing the enemy to accept FALSE information so that he formulates a plan that ends up helping your operations. Not represented in the Trinity.
Illusion effects, bluffing, disguises or similar. There's little point in a role dedicated to this specifically in TT/MMOs. It would fall under damage prevention (the monster/player attacks a target that isn't there or runs off) or redirection (the monster attacks a poor choice of target who can absorb it better).
You have Command & Control - Forumalting an effective plan of battle, communicating that plan to all the different combat elements involved in the engagement and coordinating the actions of those elements so they can work effectively with one another and react to changing battlefield conditions. Not represented in the Trinity.
Players again. Occasionally there's classes/abilities to represent this in-game, but mechanically, they're just static bonuses. It's all in the players and their discussions.
Disruption - Disrupting your enemies Command and Control system so he can't effectively organize his forces to engage you in a coordinated fashion. This doesn't even neccesarly involve direct attack...and can include stuff like signal jamming or relay of false orders. Not represented in the Trinity.
Impossible to put into a TT/MMO. The same way that C&C is external to the game, disrupting it would mean disrupting the GM's thoughts or the server's processing.
Manuver - The ability to move your forces on the battlefield to where they need to be in order to best engage the enemy. The best intelligence and best plan of action are worthless if you can't get your forces to the right place at the right time to execute them. Not represented in the Trinity.
All characters need to be mobile. All fights assume that all characters who are going to be involved can theoretically get there (although they sometimes start too far away). Best represented by the speed of each character and the occasional in-combat teleportation/repositioning ability.
Logistics - Getting your forces the resources they need in order to operate at peak efficency. Ninety percent of large scale conflicts are won or lost based upon logistics. Not really represented in the Trinity...although you could maybe argue the Healer plays a fringe role here.
Every class has to provide their own resources to use their abilities, and every character has to provide their own equipment. Based on enemy Interdiction, a debuff-remover would fit this, but that's generally not enough of a role to require someone dedicated to it.
Interdiction - Preventing the enemy from getting the resources he needs to his forces in order to prevent them from operating at peak efficency.
This would be crowd control (a form of damage mitigation) - preventing the enemy from casting spells, for instance.
Area Denial - Preventing the enemy from utilizing or manuvering into an area of the battlefield in order to limit his options for engagemention. Not represented in the Trinity.
Crowd control again, when it exists at all (usually it's more in the nature of "if you move here, you're penalized").
Suppression/Fire Support/Smoke - Attacking the enemy not to damage/destroy but to harras and prevent them from effectively attacking/targeting your forces. You could maybe consider the Tanks aggro abilities or other classes debuff abilities as one form of this role.
Agreed on that one.
Basically, you're trying to apply large-scale roles where both sides are under the same overall limitations (orders need to be passed, resources are finite, etc.) to fireteam-level encounters in a setup where the limitations are different between the sides.
MMOs and Tabletop RPGs (not to be confused with Tabletop wargaming) operate under very different assumptions than real life armies do, and the parallels you can draw are fairly limited.
A better way to prove the point that there are other roles than the Trinity would be to describe what they would do in a MMO/TT setting, rather than just categorize them.
There's a reason the Trinity is so prevalent, though, and since I don't remember if anyone's made it in this thread, I'll do so in my next post.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, as I said in the prior post, this may have been spelled out already in the thread, or on other threads, but I don't recall it, so here's my take on it:
Why the Trinity of roles is so Prevalent
Combat in RPGs (whether tabletop or MMO) consists of exactly two goals: The players want their health to stay high, and they want the enemies health to go down. That's it. Everything else comes from there. There is an ancillary principle that it's better to keep everyone's health above 0 than it is to keep a few people at maximum, because a character at 0 health doesn't contribute to either of the two above goals. Likewise, it's better to focus fire one enemy down to health 0 than it is to do an equal amount of damage spread out across several foes (or several types of health for one foe).
Given that, there's two obvious roles: Characters who specialize in keeping their friends' health high, and characters who specialize in lowering the enemies' health. The way in which the characters do this may vary. You can keep your health high by healing (healing), by mitigating damage (mitigation), by preventing the enemy from doing damage in the first place (crowd control), or just by weakening the enemy so they lower your health slower (debuffing). You can reduce the enemy's health by dealing damage (DPS), by making your allies do more damage (buffing), or by preventing the enemies from raising their health (debuffing, crowd control). Finally, there's the two meta-roles of preventing the enemy from doing any of those to you (cleansing or resurrection) and redirecting damage to where it'll do the least harm (damage control).
Seems like there's a lot of options within the two primary roles, doesn't it? There are, but a lot of them are not very deep.
Healing - The enemy will do damage, and you're going to want to undo it. Fairly simple, but the only role which deals with damage after the fact.
Mitigation - This is generally a percentage based reduction in the damage you take, rather than all-or-nothing like Crowd Control or by reducing the damage output like Debuffing. (The percentage could be based on being hit by X% less attacks, or by taking X% less damage when you are hit). Mitigation could be applied externally by a buffer or be inherent in the role.
Buffing - This is a pretty minor role. Your allies are either buffed or they aren't. You can help with both reducing damage taken and increasing damage dealt, and you may have to keep re-applying buffs, or your buffs might be essential to success, but those are all balance decisions made in order to create a need for a buffer. There's no inherent call for one in the system. The one exception is the buffer who provides damage absorbtion to others, in which case they're really filling the Healing role instead.
Crowd Control - Lock down the enemy in some way so they aren't helping their side. Like Mitigation, except it's all-or-nothing. Includes the sub-role of resource denial where the enemy can do things, but not their primary role.
Debuffing - Like Mitigation, except applying to all damage the enemy deals instead of just damage targeting you. Like buffing in that the enemy is either debuffed with any given debuff or they aren't, and the game is either balanced around the presence of the debuff or it isn't.
DPS - You need to do damage to the enemy. Another straightforward role that's absolutely necessarily.
Cleansing - Undo enemy debuffs and crowd control. Only useful if the enemy actually does those to you.
Resurrection - I'm only referring to in-combat rezzing, and by that, I mean anything which lets a character who would normally drop to 0 effectiveness due to lack of health continue contributing. Effectively the same as Cleansing, except vs DPS instead of Debuffs or Crowd Control, so every enemy has it.
Damage control - Given the ancillary principle, there needs to be a way to control which ally the enemy is doing damage to, in order to prevent them focusing on a low-health target, to let them beat on a target where the damage will be a smaller percentage of his health, and to make the healer's job easier.
So what does it boil down to? And where's the classical Tank? The DPS is pretty obvious - no damage mean no chance to win. The all-or-nothing type (Crowd control) is problematic for the same reason save-or-die spells are. Either bosses are immune, in which case the character focused on it is useless some of the time, or they aren't, in which case they're a pushover. Buffing (when not providing damage absorption) and Debuffing can certainly be useful, but it's entirely a balance choice whether they're essential or gravy. In neither case are they required by our two goals and ancillary principle. Buffing for damage absorption is technically preemptive Healing. The Healing role is essential for any fight that isn't trivialized. You will be taking damage, and you'll need to restore your health (or have the damage preemptively absorbed). Cleansing and Resurrection are of only limited usefulness, and contribute nothing on their own - they only make sure your allies can continue to be effective.
What's left? Mitigation and Damage Control. These two work really well together (although they don't have to be on the same character). You want the character who specializes in taking less damage per hit to be the one taking all the hits. Thus the classical MMO Tank (TT tanks tend to be Mitigation & DPS instead, due to lack of Damage Control).
It's worth pointing out that nothing in any of the above defines just how each specialization does their thing. It's equally valid to have high mitigation because you have a 90% dodge chance, as it is to have +5 full plate and a +5 tower shield, as it is to have lots of cute fluffy critters you've summoned which jump in the way of each hit on you. It's equally valid to crowd control by turning someone into a sheep as it is to bull rush them into a pit. It's equally valid to do burst damage at range with magic or arrows as it is to do it up close with swords or claws.
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TL;DR
Three aspects of combat, become the three roles in the Trinity:
"Lower their health" = DPS
"Raise our health" = Healer
"Distribute damage to us so that the best target takes it" = Tank.
Everything else is unnecessary, although potentially useful.
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stuff
I agree with the conclusion you've reached. However, I don't agree with the general idea that the Trinity is a working model for group formation, mostly because it dictates content design.
If you have a dungeon, and you want to make every role of the trinity feel necessary, then you HAVE to have enemies that deal so much damage that no one but the Tank can sustain the hits, and you HAVE to have enemies with such high health that a healer and a tank cannot solo the area with their limited resources.
All this does is create a scenario which drastically increases the importance of a well-geared tank, necessitates a healer role, and creates a no-win scenario (well, ALMOST no-win) if the tank dies (for whatever reason).
Rather than designing encounters with interesting and unique mechanics, the Trinity system allows designers to say, "Well, just make this enemy deal even more damage, and we'll call him a Boss."
Now, all this isn't to say that the roles, in and of themselves, aren't a bad thing, but by making those roles the fundamental building blocks of EVERY successful group, you greatly hinder the creative ability of your design team. A fight should be beatable by a mixed group, and caster-heavy group, or even an all Bard group. Player skill, and the skillful use of abilities, should cause players to create these roles within a group, not force them into these roles.
With a broad enough array of specializations to choose from, this becomes a non-issue.In short, it would require players to think.No, it doesn't. It either forces everyone into tankmage builds, de facto forces everyone into trinity builds, or ends up into a vague City of Heroes blur where there are seventeen million different builds of vastly varying effectiveness but who cares because the game is extremely easy.This gentleman is correct. Contrary to the talk about "Hate" mechanics, the reason for "trinity" roles is microeconomics.
A basic axiom of microeconomics is: It is more efficient to specialize and trade.
** spoiler omitted **
...
No.. No it doesn't. The mechanics of all games like this, revolve around three things in combat. Doing damage, not taking damage and removing damage.
It doesn't matter if I put in Fish Frying Specialist, Action Figure specialist, or anything else. People will gravitate to DPS/HEALS/TANK. Because enemies in a video game are not able to be defeated by your masterful cooking skills, or your ability to tie knots.
Take a moment actually analyze how you play through combat. In AD&D My Lupin Fighter plays the role of Tank, as I have the most HP and can heal faster than other people. I also play the role of DPR. We have another fighter who plays a more AC focused tank. We've got two wizards who focus mostly on control, and a cleric for heals.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There are alternative styles; the point is that every character, and every group of characters, should be able to beat a character or group of higher nominal power level, and should be defeated by a specific character or group of lower nominal power level. (with the possible exception of the group composed of one of every archetype; that group may either beat or be beaten by, or some combination, groups containing only one of the archetypes)
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, as I said in the prior post, this may have been spelled out already in the thread, or on other threads, but I don't recall it, so here's my take on it:
I believe you are making alot of assumptions that don't neccesarly need to hold true. Your assumptions are all based on the presumption that the classic trinity model and all it's underlying dynamics exist. That does not neccesarly need to hold true for an MMO and particulary for one focused on PvP. Nor does scale, as I'd like to point out...really enter into it as much as you imply.
The primary role of an adventuring group is NOT
"The players want their health to stay high, and they want the enemies health to go down."
It's to defeat the encounter. Defeating the encounter can take many forms. Killing the enemy is one of them, causing them to withdraw is another, rendering them harmless is another, avoiding them is another, coopting them is another. For the adventuring group it doesn't neccesarly matter as much how the encounter is defeated as simply the fact that it is.
Nevertheless, lets assume that killing the enemy is the primary objective of a particular encounter. The combat roles definately do NOT need to break down as simplisticaly as you described.
For example in many game systems "Healing" is not even a combat based activity. It doesn't occur in combat situations...it occurs as a non-combat activity. It's only in a systems like DnD where it's a "race to the bottom with hit points" dynamic that healing often (but not neccesarly required) gets turned into a primary role.
"Tanking" is not neccesarly a dedicated role that occurs in many PnP system.... even DnD prior to 4th Edition didn't really have dedicated "Tanks". You certainly had characters with better defensive abilities then others.... but in general they didn't really have much in the way of forcing opponents to engage them (i.e. there was no "aggro" mechanic) and ignore others. The best they could do was attempt to engage individual opponents themselves...or position themselves in such a manner as to physicaly block the path to other targets.... but that really doesn't have much effectiveness against ranged attacks or spells...nor does it work against melee unless you can constrict your opponents avenue of approach.
Yet there are plenty of other roles that are criticaly important in PnP or even in real life tactical combat that didn't get translated into the overly simplistic engines of early MMO.
Combat Intelligence and Manuver were, in fact, THE PRIMARY ROLE of the Rogue in earlier DnD systems. DPS (prior to 4th Edition) was at best an ancillary role. If you had a Rogue who that his class was all about backstab...you had someone that really didn't know how to play his class well.
The rogues primary job was to discover the hazards the party were likely to face (traps, trip-wires, alarms, monsters), learn about thier nature and find ways for the party to avoid them or if not avoid them at least position themselves to deal with them to thier best advantage.
Being aware of the enemy, his position and capabilities before the enemy is aware of you is one of the most important elements of victory on the tactical scale as well as the strategic. Ask anyone that's ever suffered through an ambush.
Wizard's main role was not just DPS but also thier utility functions. If you were doing it right, something like Fly or Blink or Web or Wall of Iron was every bit as important in a fight as Fireball.
Being able to manuver so you are ontop of that tall stone pillar that the horde of goblins has to scale up rather then down on the ground being swarmed by them is...or SHOULD be a very big deal in a fight.
The reason why you had the Tank, Healer, DPS model become so prevelant has very little to do with the way combat naturaly or realisticaly breaks down...it had to do with the fact that few of the earliest PVE Online RPG's decided to adopt that model because it was something thier crude and simplistic game engines and A.I. could handle....it was also a bastardization of something that kinda looked familiar to many players (DnD) so they thought it might be easy for people to fall into.
Once other Developers saw that these early games were succesfull in using that model, they decided not to risk reinventing the wheel and it just became the "common wisdom" of how to model things.
It has nothing to do with how combat naturaly breaks down....it's simply one very simple and workable model.
There is plenty of room for others....and PFO does not neccesarly need to adopt a Trinity model....particularly given that the primary opposition players will be expecting to face in this game will consist of highly unpredctable, adaptable and crafty human beings....not brain dead A.I. controled mobs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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People will gravitate to DPS/HEALS/TANK.
That may be technically true the way you intend it, but the real question is in the mindset of how you define "Tank".
If a wizard is able to survive the sustained attacks of a wraith, is he "tanking" it?
If a rogue is able to survive the sustained attacks of a fighter-type by being able to dodge/parry/run around, is he "tanking" it?
The problem arises when there's a Tank role that only one character in the party can play, and that character is expected to "tank" everything the party faces.
Mamma mia. This topic has exploded, I'll put all night to read it.
I would vote for a greater choice of "archetypes". Pathfinder has many classes and after all options, each beautiful in some way, but in the end if a PG can deal damage AND have high defences, or HP, is a tank
if can deal damage but has low hp is a glass cannon, and so on.
the tabletop game itself has this definitions.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Mamma mia. This topic has exploded, I'll put all night to read it.
I would vote for a greater choice of "archetypes". Pathfinder has many classes and after all options, each beautiful in some way, but in the end if a PG can deal damage AND have high defences, or HP, is a tank
if can deal damage but has low hp is a glass cannon, and so on.the tabletop game itself has this definitions.
I think 11 is enough to start.
For that matter, I think 11 is going to be way too many to balance within a reasonable amount of money. I expect major changes to archetypes until things become stagnant, and then additional archetypes to be added.
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Goblin Squad Member
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the tabletop game itself has this definitions.
Yeah, I remember my friends talking about the "Dwarven Tank" in D&D, but it was definitely not the Tank of the modern MMO, in that it had no Taunt. The idea never occurred to any of my friends that the Dwarven Tank needed a way to force mobs to attack him. He just ran up to the biggest baddest nasty and started swinging. If the bad nasty took a round to throw a spear at the rogue, or whatever, the Dwarven Tank would just shrug and think "not my problem".
I can only speak for pfrpg and D&D 3.x. i don't have any experience in mmorpg's combat structure.
but seriously, i can force an enemy to fight only my super awesome barbarian dwarf? meh...
the first thing to kill is always the little guy with the dagger or the wand
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have Combat Intelligence - Identifying the enemies capabilities, disposition and placement on the battlefield so you can forumalte an effective plan of engagement. Not represented in the Trinity model
This is the player. Do you know what that monster is you're facing? Are you paying attention...
No, it's not the player unless your GM or game engine sucks. How does the player KNOW an enemy is present? How do they know where that enemy is located? How do they know what THAT particular enemies capabilities are. How do they know that pile of junk at thier feet is actualy a Fire Trap?
That is all something that ends up getting revealed to the players THROUGH the skills/abilities of particular classes of characters.
Having individuals that can give your party/team awareness of the battle-field and it's hazards is/SHOULD be a primary function in combat. It NOT DPS, was in fact the primary role of the Rogue in PnP D&D.
You have Counter-Intelligence - Confounding the enemies ability to gain valuable information about your forces so he cannot formulate an effective plan of battle or deliberately causing the enemy to accept FALSE information so that he formulates a plan that ends up helping your operations. Not represented in the Trinity.
Illusion effects, bluffing, disguises or similar. There's little point in a role dedicated to this specifically in TT/MMOs. It would fall under damage prevention (the monster/player attacks a target that isn't there or runs off) or redirection (the monster attacks a poor choice of target who can absorb it better).
You're giving this pretty short shrift and it's not just limited to damage prevention. Being able to ambush the enemy because he's not aware you are there is a pretty huge offensive multiplier that can end up with a fight over before it's started. It's every bit as viable and multi-dimensional as the role "healer" (which is pretty much not a combat based role tacticaly in real life...the role of a medic is to stabilize someone, preserve thier life and get them OUT of combat so they can be shipped to a medical facility somewhere to hopefully recouperate)
Manuver - The ability to move your forces on the battlefield to where they need to be in order to best engage the enemy. The best intelligence and best plan of action are worthless if you can't get your forces to the right place at the right time to execute them. Not represented in the Trinity..
All characters need to be mobile. All fights assume that all characters who are going to be involved can theoretically get there (although they sometimes start too far away). Best represented by the speed of each character and the occasional in-combat teleportation/repositioning ability.
Where exactly is there? You seem to assume that the battle-field in a tactical encounter is one uniform place and where you are located on it doesn't matter. That is very much the opposite of how combat works in real life and how a good GM will handle combat on the table-top. Position in combat is a critical element to victory. Can you flank the enemy? Can you occupy high ground or good cover? In DnD can a Wizard Levitate/Fly/Teleport you up to the top of a stone pillar so that you can rain down missles/spells on an enemy that can't even touch you?
I could go on here but I won't. Point is you are basing your perceptions upon a very limited preconcieved model of 1 particular (though very commonly implimented) combat model that need not neccesarly hold true. I'm surprised you can't see that...especialy if you have some background in table-top...where the Trinity, even in DnD really doesn't exist as we know it in most MMO's.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wow... I thought this thread couldn't get any more awesome after the first 2 pages. And then... wow.
Back on topic: Bobson, I'm agreeing with GrumpyMel and a few others here. You are correct about roles in most MMOs today, but only because of the mechanics that most MMOs today agree on, which can totally be changed or altered and keep the game fun. Look at how PvP in most MMO's works: It's exactly like PvE, but without aggro. Suddenly, conventional tanking and aggro management becomes impossible, and players are forced to figure out other ways to tank.
Warhammer Online and League of Legends are the two examples that spring in my mind. In WAR, all tanks could also either buff or debuff, and most tanks have AoE knockback. That's more of a CC role, but it still forces the enemies to deal with them. (The fact that enemy players were collidable made for more fun; several tanks forming a literal wall to stop enemy melee is a common strategy.) So you still have Tank/Heal/DPS, but all three have to be able to play defensively, usually through buffing/debuffing.
In League of Legends, although almost all tanking champions have some sort of taunt, several tanks have other ways of getting enemies attention. Shen can do some healing, Rammus can AoE knockback and slow, Taric can stun... all of them become annoying enough that most players, especially inexperienced ones, are more likely to start trying to kill them.
My favorite tanking mechanic, though, is Cho'Gath's... he can gain a stacking buff that increases his size! At the maximum six stacks, he takes up a huge chunk of the screen, meaning that most players will wind up clicking on him, regardless of where they wanted the attack to go. Suddenly, he starts taking the brunt of the attacks, without taunting anyone!
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Goblin Squad Member
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We know that the main focus and greatest challenges of PFO (yeah, I'll use that instead of POL from now on) are going to be pvp related. And no one is asking for TPKing AI. So we're talking about making the 'theme park elements' and random monster encounters more interesting, basically. Someone has already mentioned a sort of list-an aggro table with priorities. This could be an answer that makes the metagame more fun. A 'priority hate' mechanic would allow different monster types different tactics providing pve fights with variety.An ooze goes after whoever is in front of it. A vermin probably the person who last did the most damage. A monstrous humanoid, yes, probably the biggest fighter. A dragon probably the healer then breaks out the breath weapon if he gets 'em down. So it gets a little more complex-a vampire goes for the guy/gal with the highest charisma then flees. Evil cultists rush the good cleric, consequences be damned. I'm curious to see how they pull off maneuverbility; can MOBS go thru or between PCs without a CMD check? Could there be automatic attacks of opportunity (apologies to the proponents of turned based combat, that ain't happening)? This kind of thing would preserve some tabletop PF flavor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is 'the trinity' the existence of -only- the roles of striker/dps, tank, healer/leader? In which MMOs are those roles enforced by the rules (rather than by the players?)
Any system which gives Tanks a Taunt ability will devolve to the trinity. Systems that don't give Tanks a Taunt should be able to avoid that fate: there's plenty of evidence in older PnP RPGs where there were a lot of different roles, but no taunt, and therefore no absolute devolution to the trinity.
Note also that the trinity does not preclude roles like Crowd Control, Buffer or Debuffer, but when there is Taunt, these all boil down to +Healing, by reducing the amount of incoming damage to the Tank, or to +Damage by increasing the rate of damage outgoing to the mobs.
Ryan's right, it's the Taunt that tips the scales.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is 'the trinity' the existence of -only- the roles of striker/dps, tank, healer/leader? In which MMOs are those roles enforced by the rules (rather than by the players?)Any system which gives Tanks a Taunt ability will devolve to the trinity. Systems that don't give Tanks a Taunt should be able to avoid that fate: there's plenty of evidence in older PnP RPGs where there were a lot of different roles, but no taunt, and therefore no absolute devolution to the trinity.
Note also that the trinity does not preclude roles like Crowd Control, Buffer or Debuffer, but when there is Taunt, these all boil down to +Healing, by reducing the amount of incoming damage to the Tank, or to +Damage by increasing the rate of damage outgoing to the mobs.
Ryan's right, it's the Taunt that tips the scales.
Also agreed, as well as the general single best class at survivability for any situation, as well as gear dwarfing the character in terms of all forms of defense, in most games they make magic classes stronger at defending against magic, but most games when you factor in high end gear you negate that advantage and turn it to nearly nothing, allowing a single class to have the greatest survivability on anything if he has the armor for protection.
Also gear itself is just too darn strong in many cases, damage is scaled up too darn high etc... Yes I think that the fighters/palis should have better armor then the wizards, but I think the ratio needs to be more on the scales of 10% wizards, 20%ish rogues, 25-30% tanks.
WoW and other games seem to make the ratio more along the lines of 15% cloth, 25-40% light armor, 90% tanks... and then rack up the damage so high that it can 2-3 shot your average tank, guaranteeing a 1 shot on anything smaller. If the damage is scaled back drastically and other classes didn't require the super meat shield, then both routes would be plausible, you can attempt to have the heavy armored person hold off the lines, or you can go without one and damage faster to prevent getting killed, or a wiz can CC etc... Many solutions to the same problem instead of one required solution.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Either it is possible to control the target of the opponent (taunt) or it isn't. If there is no way to control who the opponent does attack, then there is no point to having a defensive character with weak offense.
Controlling the enemy's target doesn't mean "press a button" it can mean "you have to get through me first" and it can mean "if you turn your back on me, I will put your face in the ground."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Either it is possible to control the target of the opponent (taunt) or it isn't. If there is no way to control who the opponent does attack, then there is no point to having a defensive character with weak offense.
Controlling the enemy's target doesn't mean "press a button" it can mean "you have to get through me first" and it can mean "if you turn your back on me, I will put your face in the ground."
I don't think it's neccessarly that binary of a choice. If you look at the traditional PnP play (something like older versions of DnD), you could SOMETIMES control the target of SOME types of attacks.
The Trinity model tends to depend upon near perfect/universal control of all attacks in nearly all situations. That's something that allows a full, dedicated combat role to build the core function of a class out of.
For example, in traditional PnP DnD... IF attacks were melee based and IF the party could constrict the attackers avenue of approach of those melee attackers they could prevent (through physical positioning) attackers from reaching the more lightly armored/less well defended against melee attack members of the party. Thus you had "frontline" classes (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, etc) that attempted to perform that duty WHERE FEASABLE. However since that duty was so situational and imprefect....you didn't have them pushed into that one single, narrow and one dimensional combat role as THE Role they played in combat. It was just one function in thier TOOLBOX of functions that they could perform under the right comditions.
They all had other important functions that they played in combat. For example most of them were pretty good at DEALING physical damage to purely physical opponents....sometimes at melee, sometimes at range. Some of them had healing functions, or buff/debuff functions, or utility functions or specialized functions for dealing with different types of opponents. The exact thing that the character would do or attempt to do would vary depending upon the situation the party found themselves in.
In MMO's the roles have been simplified, watered down and condensed. So each class is pretty much relegated to performing ONLY one function in every single encounter, regardless of the encounter/situation. The "Tank" exists because he can PREDICTABLY control ALL sorts of attacks in ALL situations. He doesn't NEED to be able to do anything else, because that FUNCTION is always AVAILABLE. Similarly, other classes aren't given much in the way of defensive abilities because that's ALREADY someone elses sole, full time job....and you don't want to take away the ONLY thing that person has to do, by giving other classes a means of not needing it.
On the other hand, if the ability to control the target of an attack is limited, highly conditional upon the type of attack/situation and expected to be IMPERFECT....then you open to door for that class to have OTHER things they are expected to do in combat....and you open the opportunity for other classes to have ways of thier own for compensating against attacks (like spells that protect against missles, or barkskin, etc) that are expected to get through. You create a much more dynamic combat model....where people are expected to ADAPT the function they are performing depending upon the situation faced...and have multiple tools in thier toolbox to deal with things. Note that this DOES NOT Eliminate specialization....as you will have classes that are BETTER at dealing with X type of situation/role then other (i.e. Fighters ARE better at defending against purely physical melee attacks then Wizards, but it's not the SOLE thing they do...and they are not the ONLY ones that have SOME capability in that area).
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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So, if a tank is less than 100% effective, the trinity doesn't develop? I don't expect there to be a way to change the target of other players, but a strong disincentive to "make an attack that does not include the defender as a target" would provide a small measure of control.
Or we could play the role straight: at the expense of attack flexibility, the paladin could redirect missile and melee attacks from his protectee to himself. Basing the tank role as to who can be defended, rather than who cannot attack, would significantly change the dynamic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, if a tank is less than 100% effective, the trinity doesn't develop? I don't expect there to be a way to change the target of other players, but a strong disincentive to "make an attack that does not include the defender as a target" would provide a small measure of control.
Or we could play the role straight: at the expense of attack flexibility, the paladin could redirect missile and melee attacks from his protectee to himself. Basing the tank role as to who can be defended, rather than who cannot attack, would significantly change the dynamic.
If it is less then 60% effective, the trinity does not optimize. When a tank is 100% effective in 100% of circumstances as a tank build, he will put 100% of his effort and gear into super defense and always be useful regardless of his offense. If half the fights his defense is useless but his offense would be beneficial, he will diversify out making himself good in many situations rather then being excellent in only one situation. This makes a party that finds different ways to handle different scenarios, better then a 1 trick pony tank n spank party.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, if a tank is less than 100% effective, the trinity doesn't develop? I don't expect there to be a way to change the target of other players, but a strong disincentive to "make an attack that does not include the defender as a target" would provide a small measure of control.
Or we could play the role straight: at the expense of attack flexibility, the paladin could redirect missile and melee attacks from his protectee to himself. Basing the tank role as to who can be defended, rather than who cannot attack, would significantly change the dynamic.
There are lots of different ways to handle it. One way would be to simply impliment Collision Detection (as exists in PnP) at least for combat situations. You can also impliment an engagement system. You could have spells or other abilities that improved the entire parties defences unless the character maintaining the spell were countered-defeated.
For example think about the classic movie confrontation you see in some horror movies between the vampire and the "good guy" holding the cross. The vampire can't harm the party until he dominates the guy holding the cross in a battle of wills. The struggle is entirely mental between the vampire and his opponent....but it acts as an effective barrier to the vampires abilities until he is able to overcome it. That's a model of something that could easly be represented with a magic spell/ability for certain classes against certain types of opponents.
There are alot of different ways mechanicaly to go about implimenting something like that. It's not particulary hard to do mechanicaly (look at any "spaceship" game that impliments a force-shield or tractor/repulse beam or grappler type weapon, for a practical example). You just have to decide that you want to do it in the first place....and start putting together a matrix of different properties of attacks/attackers and the different types of defences that can be applied against them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, if a tank is less than 100% effective, the trinity doesn't develop? I don't expect there to be a way to change the target of other players, but a strong disincentive to "make an attack that does not include the defender as a target" would provide a small measure of control.
Or we could play the role straight: at the expense of attack flexibility, the paladin could redirect missile and melee attacks from his protectee to himself. Basing the tank role as to who can be defended, rather than who cannot attack, would significantly change the dynamic.
To be more specific about the exact mechanisms that could be available..
- You could make it so that an attacker could not move through a defender (i.e. Collision Detection) or optionaly some test was required to do so.
- You could make it so that an attacker could not move away from a defender (i.e. an engagement system or grapple style defence) or optionaly a test was required to do so...or doing so made the attacker vulnerable (i.e. attacks of opportunity).
- You could make it so that the attacker could not approach the defender closer then a given distance (i.e. "Holding at Bay" or a tractor/repulse/force shield type system).
- You could render it so that attacks were simply rendered ineffective or the parties defences against them were vastly improved until the defender maintaining said defense was defeated (i.e. A circle of protection or shield type ability)
- You could redirect attacks or damage from them as you suggested.
There are alot of different ways to handle such situations mechanicaly....including ones, I'm sure, that I haven't thought of.....and you most definately could use a combination of any or all of the above in the same system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as Defenders go, I would like to see a system where I can Engage an enemy, and gain bonuses to hit them if they stay in range and don't Engage me back. They should still have options to temporarily disengage me (say by kicking me out of melee range, or blinking away) and engage someone else for a round, but as long as I can Stand Tall in their face, they need to deal with me or they're going to suffer some serious consequences.
Where most MMOs really break down for me is when I use an AOE Taunt that forces 5 mobs to attack me. I just don't see how this is supposed to be realistic. Maybe I can divide my attention between 2 or 3 enemies, if they're standing close enough, and I use attacks on each of them in succession that stun them or otherwise stop them from acting at full effect for the following round, but even 3 seems very unrealistic to me. The idea that I can look at a Wizard standing 30 yards away from me, who is currently casting on my cleric friend, and have any believable means of forcing that Wizard to cast on me instead is pure silliness. If I'm not in his face presenting a credible threat, he should ignore me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as Defenders go, I would like to see a system where I can Engage an enemy, and gain bonuses to hit them if they stay in range and don't Engage me back. They should still have options to temporarily disengage me (say by kicking me out of melee range, or blinking away) and engage someone else for a round, but as long as I can Stand Tall in their face, they need to deal with me or they're going to suffer some serious consequences.
Where most MMOs really break down for me is when I use an AOE Taunt that forces 5 mobs to attack me. I just don't see how this is supposed to be realistic. Maybe I can divide my attention between 2 or 3 enemies, if they're standing close enough, and I use attacks on each of them in succession that stun them or otherwise stop them from acting at full effect for the following round, but even 3 seems very unrealistic to me. The idea that I can look at a Wizard standing 30 yards away from me, who is currently casting on my cleric friend, and have any believable means of forcing that Wizard to cast on me instead is pure silliness. If I'm not in his face presenting a credible threat, he should ignore me.
That reminds me of another available method....Flanking bonus. If the attacker is facing away from 1 character in order to attack a different target they could be subject to a MUCH more effective attack from the flanking character.