[GW2] Some Trinity Whining
This post is in direct response to Syl's "[GW2] Tired of Trinity Whining. Or: As if!", and a counter at that. Not very common, since I tend to agree with Syl on many topics. In this case, I believe some of the misgivings on the subject of roles are valid. The problem might be as well one of concept. Syl (as well as the proponents of the Trinity) talk about the three roles of healer-tank-dps, instead of the notion of "role" itself, which is what I found lacking in GW2. Mind you, not from direct experience, since I decided upon not buying a beta, but from footage and the report of other bloggers.
The topics that Syl's post covers are too broad to have received such a diminutive treatment in one post, but I will do my best to answer them. The issues of cooperation and communication are tackled, and mixed up, but they actually encompass many more issues than that of the roles, such as the server-wide "groups" and the incentivising of social actions such as cooperating for a quest or ressing. I will refer to my previous post on the topic because I do not think I can add anything else to it, I still feel the same way about this issue. TL;DR: Automating or incentivising what was a social act of yesteryear does indeed avoid some unpleasant events, but eliminates a choice of acting manifestly socially, and a way to distinguish the more social-oriented players. I expand upon this topic much more on the post, please check it out if there is a conversation to be had on that particular subject.
That part cleared, the Trinity itself has to be analysed for what it does or does not in the game. The arguments of the proponents of the Trinity as listed by Syl are the following:
a) No holy trinity means there is no cooperation anymore! *GASP* b) No holy trinity means people do not coordinate / communicate in groups! c) No holy trinity means zerg-mode and needing no strategy! d) No holy trinity means there can't be difficult combat!
A) Is wrong. The Trinity is not the issue with cooperation, as I discussed above. What the Trinity is, is a system that subscribes a class to a specific function in a party, making it more clear for all the participants the way to tackle the challenges. A "crutch", as Syl herself called it. The problem is not with a Trinity-less system, but with a role-less one. The Trinity is just one possible arrangement of roles, and the one we have learnt to expect, and translate into many other games which are not MMOs. I'll expand upon that later.
B) Coordinating and communicating are different acts, and thus have to be considered on their own. There is some sort of coordination in WoW's PvE content, even in randoms, although it is automated by the Trinity itself. The tank pulls first (or if a dps does, I let them eat the mob and go on my merry way), the healer keeps them all topped, and the dps do their thing and once in a blue moon CC some mob. This type of coordination is so ingrained in our gaming habits that we no longer see it as a coordination, which is why 5-man randoms work so well. The Trinity does the coordination for us, selecting the role we will be filling. The problem is, Guild Wars 2 has not created an alternative to the Trinity that involves any more complex cooperation than the one that we have automated.
C) That would depend on how the developers tackle the issue. We do not know yet if high-end combat will require more cooperation than the ascertained easy content that dynamic events are. In the end, we might be seeing fights like Aran in Karazhan, a favourite of some friend of mine, and that model will succeed. The concern that many people have is that high-end PvE will involve the same zerging that dynamic events are. You die, you get ressed or run back, and people pew-pew away; strength in numbers, no penalisation to chain-ressing, etc.
D) Same as above. It depends on how the encounters are designed. Zerging is the lowest-resistance path, but the qualms against zerging are only partially related to the difficulty of the encounters. In a zerg-rush, nobody stands out. You are the lowest common denominator, an expendable DPS helping the bar get lower a bit quicker. That is why zergs are not interesting.
When people deplore the loss of the Trinity, what they really miss having is a particular role in the combat, a role which may enable them to outshine through their performance. People do not miss the Trinity, they miss fulfilling a role. That role could be aligned with the Trinity (I felt proud of one-man healing Karazhan), or be something particular assigned to the individual at a given moment (Mage-tanking Maulgar, Warlock-tanking one of the Twin Emperors; Hunter-kiting in Maulgar again). If ANet is cunning enough, they will be able to pull these off in high-end PvE, and the lack of role-based performance will be diminished by an individual-based performance, but I am skeptical about it, given that there has been no instance of that in low-end PvE.
It is extremely difficult to replace the Trinity model with something completely original. No matter where you look at, people will be arranging their groups into roles similar to that of a meatshield, plus healer, plus damage dealer or control. Diablo 3: The multiplayer is so inefficient and unbalanced because classes are not designed to complement each other. A workaround in the vanilla game (before many nerf patches) which allowed one of the top WoW guilds to defeat Diablo in Inferno was to create a pseudo-Trinity with a Barbarian tanking, two Monks healing, and a Wizard dpsing. In Diablo 2 it was possible to play with friends without feeling hindered because the game was much more forgiving, and thus there was no need for a Trinity, or any role-based system. Team Fortress 2: One of the basic strategies to advance the line was to shield a Heavy or a Soldier and bring down the enemy's turrets while healed and invulnerable. Healers were key to the survival of the team, but there also existed other roles which are not easily translatable into the MMO environment unless there is a major paradigm change in the way encounters are designed. These roles were that of the Spy or the Engineer, the former to take out key targets and the latter to defend a position. Conclusion: There ought to be a major change in the way encounters are designed for other role-model to become viable in the MMO setting. Either that, or have a role-less system, which in turn does have those negative effects the Trinity-supporters claimed: loss of the individual performance, zerging and zerging-designed encounters, chaos.
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Good article. I’ve noticed the same thing while playing the GW2 betas — there aren’t any particular roles at low levels. Some of the class/weapon combinations are a bit more defensive (e.g. Guardian with mace/sword and shield) or healing oriented (Elementalist with water attunement), but nothing more overt than that.
I’ve never gotten past the starter areas, mainly because I’m saving the rest of the game for release, but perhaps at higher levels the distinctions between the classes and thus the implied roles become more apparent.
On a side-note, since I know English is not your first language, you probably mean “automated” instead of “automatised”. Similarly, “automating” instead of “automatising”.
Thanks for the grammar tips and the comment, that’s embarrassing! :)
I do not think they want you to assume the typical roles, the ability to heal I think it’s common to all characters in the same way that all classes in WoW can now heal themselves to facilitate solo play. That’s probably what you saw on your guardian and elementalist.
Your English is very good! I am nowhere near as fluent in anything other than English. :)
I was specifically talking about the ability heal *others*. Guardian has a 1H Mace ability that puts down a zone that grants a brief regen to any ally who is in the zone. Elementalist with a scepter in water attunement has a targetable AoE that does damage to enemies and heals allies.
Some classes don’t have anything like that, which is why I suspect the classes that do may tend towards a healer role or at least a healing support role. I don’t know if it will become expected of players with those classes to take on those roles in group content — it depends on the difficulty of the content and how much of a difference it makes to switch to that role.
There’s a somewhat similar situation in Rift. Mages with their Chloromancer soul make fairly good healers, especially in raids. But they also make very good DPS. When I was raiding, people were flexible and switched roles as necessary for the group composition and the particular boss fights.
I think GW2 may turn out to have a more fluid notion of what a person’s role is in a group.
I meant to say in the second last paragraph that the other Mage souls are also very good DPS, not Chloromancer.
Oh, I had actually considered rolling as a Guardian, so that I could perform as a tank, when I was thinking about getting the game, but other bloggers have been displeased with the class, so I am not so sure any more. I am not even sure about getting the game, since I cannot heal or protect my comrades in battle.
But if those abilities you mention are not powerful enough, they end up being a mere flavour skill. A real healer gives the opponent team a target in order to break down the lines, and the friendly team, a target to defend. Roles also serve a very important function in PvP, and what we have mainly seen in the reports of other bloggers is a zerg-like onslaught with little strategy involved. I am not sure I like that either.
Hi Milady,
I played a guardian in the beta extensively, as it is my profession of choice. I also tried Ranger and Elementalist.
The early game is not a good framework on which to base the game’s late game, as you acknowledge, and unfortunately there is no way to simulate the late game except to go into The Mists (the PvP staging area) which gives you access to max level gear, all the skills, and traits. It also gives you access to AI practice dummies that can be hard to beat. Early on there isn’t much in stat differentiation to successfully enter into a role, let alone tank. Early on most characters stats are split fairly evenly, some get more health/armor, but this doesn’t do a great deal to make one class more survivable than others or to differentiate role considerably. However, the early content reflects this difficulty wise, allowing for zerging to work. In the Mists this changes and I was equally capable of making my guardian a glass cannon, healer, or tanky/controller (the closest thing to a tank)* by choosing gear, traits and slotting the appropriate utility skills to perform these roles. I will call this combination of things a “spec” henceforth.
* – I say closest thing to a tank as GW 2 uses a non-traditional aggro system. Mobs can have varying AI, but mostly it’s about proximity, with damage playign a partial role. Other things may play a role as well. In such circumstances preventing a mob from reaching an ally is a better skill to have as a tank, than the traditional threat generation model with damage mitigation. This can be accomplished through body blocking, stuns/snares, or if a guardian; placing wards (magical impassable barriers). The latter two require no damage mitigation and can be accomplished by many professions, the first does require damage mitigation as you are putting yourself between the mob and its target, thus becoming the likely target.
I also found this to be the case with the elementalist where as a water spec my healing was great in water attunement at the expense of damage, or earth specced where my condition damage and control was superior at the expense of healing and direct damage. This was also the case with the ranger who could focus on spirit builds (summoned beings that provide various boons to allies, including healing), or condition damage, or direct damage. I image one could also spec as a hybrid roll and become a jack of all trades in things like control, direct damage, condition damage, and healing at the expense of being a master of none.
I have not played any of the dungeons, but from videos it doesn’t look like zerging will work as you are limited to five people, so people are going to have to be willing to change their spec around to complete those. I imagine having a support character (not necessarily healer, but someone focused on limiting damage) and tank/controller will be important. As for late game dynamic events, if the mobs hit hard enough to take out glass cannons with on shot, then it will become paramount to have people specced into other roles. However, I have not seen them so your concerns have merit, but it is not a problem without a solution, as you rightfully acknowledge.
As an addendum, to correct one factual mistake you have. Resurrection of other players is not without cost to those players. There are armor penalties for entering the defeated state. Every time you enter the downed state (the state before defeated where you fight for your life and can rally) you accumulate a penalty that will lower your consciousness 9i.e., the health you have when in the downed state) by a percentage. So, you can keep rallying, eventually after being downed enough times you will collapse into defeated.
The information you bring is quite interesting, indeed. If what you say is true, there is a full array of choices/roles given to players so that they may coordinate effectively rather than zerg. I still miss the concept of a full tank or full healer, but that is just my personal preference, as these roles allow me to be placed in the center of the action and affect it more directly than being 1 amongst other 10 dpsing away. If the specializations that GW2 provides are complex enough to foster a particular function in battle that is not straightaway dpsing, PvE will be interesting enough to compete with a more “reliable” system, and maybe there might be focus targets in PvP to make the battle a little more complex than a mere clash of forces. I hope it is that way.
Thank you for sharing your insight with us!
The thing is, even in WoW (or any modern Trinity-based MMO) when you’re running around doing quests in the world how much do you coordinate with other people around you? Questing has rarely ever been something ‘hard’ that needed advanced strategy. It’s not needed to be at a high level of teamwork in the average GW2 event either. For an elite mob, those that are better at teamwork may win easier but a big enough group can also succeed through sheer numbers most of the time (even in a Trinity game this would be the case, though).
The viability of GW2′s ‘No-Trinity’ model can only be tested in the dungeon content and team PvP arenas, neither of which I’ve personally experienced yet. Until more people get a feel for the content that’s actually built around group cohesion, it’s not possible to make conclusions one way or another about the viability of GW2′s system, imo.
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That’s why many of the points cannot yet be discussed until we have more proof, indeed. But in the case of dynamic events, which involve several people, those are nothing comparable to traditional MMO quests, and are in fact more similar to the open-world PvE encounters of even older MMOs such as Everquest. That is why people compare the PvE setting of these events to dungeons and the like. Is it appropriate to draw the comparison? It should be, because we have had other open PvE events in the past (Everquest, world bosses in WoW) that were designed with roles instead of zerging in mind. It is not the case with GW2 so far, we shall see whether it remains true in more complex environments (I hope so, WoW really needs some decent competitor that encourages Blizzard to think out of the box!)
” It depends on how the encounters are designed.”
this is pretty much the answer I give nonstop in these discussions. :)
yes, the trinity is just one system, one possible tool to design encounters around group play. obviously there are other ways, not necessary easy ways, but ways to replace that system and its huge downsides – mainly inflexibility, repetition and setup gripes.
That’s what I miss in many debates out there, people not willing to acknowledge that the attempt to replace the trinity has to do with trying to remove some real issues. defending it then gets even more bizarre when the system doesn’t actually do (QED) what many yes-sayers claim. which is was my article mostly discusses.
Overall, I don’t think we disagree that much. I agree that it’s probably the lack of role or “purpose” that scares players more than simply the lack of tank/healer. however, strictly speaking you cannot not have roles in any MMO; there will always be roles. even if you don’t intend to play one or know little about it, you will always end up assuming a role in a party (and at some point you will learn more and have preferences and specialize). the trinity’s issue is that the roles are pre-defined and inflexible (note: issue to players like me, obviously not issue to everybody). if you want to, there’s simply more versatility to be had in GW2, setup flexibility and to some extent more enforced communication and active cooperation (simply because a party will need to assign tasks rather than take them for granted – at least for “difficult” encounters that require this).
the incentivizing is something I deliberately skipped in my article; personally I find it a moot point. all cooperation in MMOs is incentivized, but I said this already. :) “pure” social behaviour is incentivized, it’s incentivized socially. I see no issue with things like adding rewards to ressing in MMOs; there’s only upsides. if you don’t design the world’s hardest, solo-unfriendly game out there, then you NEED to create motivations for cooperation via rewards, soft or hard ones. you can’t have it any other way.
now, the few altruistic social players can still be social with or without hard reward; this is not mutually exclusive. you can be social and still also have the game reward you. as for setting yourself apart as a friendly player – I disagree that this isn’t possible anymore. surely there’s more to a very social player than things like ressing or buffing others. these are superficial things.
as for the big mass of not-so-social players – it’s a good thing to get them aboard. yes, maybe they only ever res for the reward or rep, but that’s besides the point. it is worlds better than not having them care at all (like in WoW) and it doesn’t end there: a res can result in a chat, a first contact, more interaction from there. I think you are so focused on how rewards are bad that you ignore their potential of creating opportunity for more social interaction.
Syl recently posted..[GW2] Tired of Trinity Whining. Or: As if!
We do agree on many points, indeed, but your article did not acknowledge that it is not an inherent problem of the Trinity but that of a lack of roles, which is why I had the need to clarify that. I do think that an MMO can work without roles, but then it will be a zergfest, and we do not want that. The success of late game in GW2 will depend on a) how much people really need roles to feel accomplished (I do prefer to have them, but I have always liked the “harder” roles such as tanking and healing), b) if they can pull off a PvE based on individual performance.
I understand what you mean about good, social actions leading to nicer behaviour. In that respect, that can be very helpful for the community. I just wished humankind did not need external pressure to be kind towards one another. It feels fake to me. But if it does lead to real socialising, then perhaps it is not so bad. We shall see how it turns out :).
it’s a good clarification; I only wish the general forum folk knew that too. ;)
as for your misgivings about phony/fake socializing, I get that but try think of it in different, less absolute and moral terms maybe; the socializing that results of interaction is always genuine actually, it’s what may or may not happen out of free will. if it does though, that is an honest thing. the enforced cooperation or incentivized interaction that comes before that is simply put a necessary tool (in your words probably a necessary evil) in MMO design, so we don’t end up with a solo game.
it’s the crux of every MMO that allows soloing / self-sufficiency that it then needs to find other ways to make grouping necessary. I’m not sure we need to condemn this as ‘fake’; it’s dealing with a reality. that doesn’t mean people never group up else or support others, but they tend to stick to very close circles of friends. if you incentivize certain aspects of cooperation, you can break this up a little, especially for outdoor activities. whether strangers truly socialize due to this though is still up to them.
I think that the majority of anti-Trinity people are anti-role as well. They want every character to be able to do every action, such that every possible group is viable.
I too am of the opinion that path will lead to the zerg, especially in transient groups. In more formal extended groups, we might see the voluntary assumption of roles. Like in soccer you have defense and offense roles, but they are assumed, not inherent.
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I am afraid of that too. The tools to make it viable are there, we have seen it in role-less encounters in WoW such as Aran. I am not certain that ANet aims to design that kind of PvE, though, at first because the focus is not in the PvE aspect of the game.
I guess that I associate not being able to do everything with having to rely on others, and that with cooperation. It does not have to be that way, but it certainly helps create a particular mindset in which every member is a piece of the engine, with one significant function, as opposed to the zerg mindset, which turns you into a mere cipher. We shall see.
Thanks for the comment!
I don’t think there is any hard data to conclude this is the case. There are going to be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of players. It would be difficult to get an assessment of what the majority believe on this issue from the few blog/forum posts either one of us can directly experience.
What we can do is glean a sense of what might be the case from what Arena Net has shown us so far, and what they have publicly stated. From their public statements it is clear that they are opposed to the holy trinity, but are not anti-role. In fact they speak quite favorably of three roles they want any class to fulfill, but not necessarily all at once. These are damage, support, and control (and not necessarily all at once).
From what they’ve shown us the majority of the professions have the armor, skills, and traits available to them to fulfill any role, some of them better than others. What is lacking so far, in the early game, is content that clearly demonstrates a need for all of these roles.
As I said above, this is understandable as early on one does not have access to the array of skills, gear, and traits that would make them shine in any of these roles. So, everyone does appear to be jack of all trades. However, after you have to choose a weapon (some being more specialized at certain roles than other) and make some difficult choices slotting skills/traits, its clear that one can define their role. Whether it be support, control, damage, or jack of all trades (master of none).
I do want every character to be capable of doing any role, just not all at once (unless it is to the detriment of all the roles they take on). I am very much soured by my days as a early WoW paladin, who wanted to tank, but was told to get in the back and heal. :)
I believe you’re falling for a false dichotomy. Rohan mentioned football; there is a difference between roles in football (except for the goalkeeper) and WoW and the key word is hybrid. In football, most (often all but not always) of players in the field are hybrids: They have a role on offense, a role on defense, a role when taking a free kick etc. They are expected to be able to perform in all of the roles in a single match based on the situation. The goalkeeper is usually a pure role and sometimes team have a striker who doesn’t get involved in the defense or a defender who doesn’t go forward but in general, the players are expected to take multiple roles during a single match.
On the other hand, holy trinity roles are pure. Think about WoW, apart from AA/A priests there is no hybrid. Early WoW actually tried to include hybrids but it seems it didn’t work out due to problems of balancing pures vs hybrids so they chose to turn them into pures as well. And since WoW is so omnipresent, people tend to forget about hybrids although I am convinced they are a viable alternative. Sure, they are hard to balance against pures but there are other options than getting rid of them – such as getting rid of pures.
I think the biggest complain about a “pure” system is that it breaks with small groups as the number of optional role positions gets close to zero. However, I believe having hybrids might help as everybody would be able to do multiple roles. On the other hand, the roles are kept so I believe the risk of turning into a zerg is about as high as in “pure” systems (such as trinity) – what is lost is the concept of people having a fixed role in a particular encounter.
Of course, there’s a question of what the GW2′s system is – whether it’s closer to a roleless one or to a hybrid characters one. Arena.net probably do recognize the advantages of hybrids (or they wouldn’t be talking about their version of trinity etc.) but what will the system turn out to be is a question probably only those with some experience in the more challenging PvE (exploration dungeons) can answer.
What we have seen so far is not a hybrid system (which would be closer to the one in Rift), but an all-DPS one, making healing a very circumstantial action which you would direct to yourself instead of others, and tanking a matter that anybody can do, with the right amount of kiting. That is, so far.
I agree that GW2 might have gone too much in the opposite direction although it’s not an all DPS one but more of all-control-and-DPS one. The support role didn’t feel like having an impact on anything.
I think it’s closer to a hybrid model than Rift though. I admit I haven’t played late (mid- to end-) game there but it felt like majority of builds were pure with a few hybrids added for a good measure without breaking the base.
I just wished humankind did not need external pressure to be kind towards one another. It feels fake to me.
“We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.”
-Aristotle
I understand the sentiment behind your words. Motivation does matter to me too – a guy helping an old woman across the street to score points with his girlfriend feels worlds different than the same guy doing it out of pure empathy and sense of duty. A random passing druid buffing my lowbie alt makes me smile because I know it isn’t incentivized in any way in-game.
At the same time, Syl (and Aristotle) is right. Eventually, people will come to enjoy rezzing strangers and continue to do so at level 80 when it no longer rewards XP. And if they don’t, well… hey, you got someone to do an objectively good act for 79 levels that they would not have normally done anyway. That is a Win-Win in my book.
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Aristotle also thought that humanity was naturally good and that bad behaviour was spurred by ignorance, and that is absolutely wrong. Nevertheless, the sentence you quoted rings truer to me, if we can consider attitude on the same level of custom.
Yes, perhaps this is the way for the jerkish community to become something better after all, or at least to minimize the public jerkish behaviour. Right now, with the dismantlement of the server community (with LFD and LFR, welfare epics, easy migrations, etc), obnoxious players seem to have taken over all the public spaces. I wonder if the players could do something against it, rather than the developers having to enforce good behaviour (or, as I consider GW2 attempts, eliminating zones of friction).
I believe the trinity in Guild Wars 2 is more of Control/Support/Damage.
Tanks and crowd controllers fall under control, though tanking in this case refers more to positioning and placement, rather than traditional aggro holding and meatshielding.
Support covers buffs, healing and debuffs on the enemy. Damage is damage.
What is perhaps remarkable and flexible and something people may not have gotten used to, is that all classes can fulfill those roles, depending on how they are specced. It is also possible to switch in and out of various roles in combat as the player determines a need.
This doesn’t mean that everyone is dps, period. It means there is bigger potential for skill and better play to shine.
The closest analogy I can think of is City of Heroes combat. Take a dark defender. Ostensibly a support class, but relegating it to healing only would be a poor use of its skills. They shine with debuffs. And smart use of skills allows it to crowd control with fear, allowing a team to attack with no fear of alpha strike retaliation. It can even ‘tank’ by corner pulling with their debuff anchor, arranging mobs neatly for another teammate to AoE down. And it does some damage, not the best, but some. The skilled player looks at the current situation and chooses the best strategy and role for it.
If that model you mention is present in the game in later stages, as some commentators have pointed out, we will see in the future complex PvE encounters that do away with the zerging that encompassed all of the PvE experiences so far.
It is curious how the concern that people had that the Trinity is done for is actually a concern for a role-less system, which we have seen that it is not the case in GW2. For some reason I still prefer the old system, since it ensures that your role is fixed and stable, whereas the very circumstantial defensive positions into which you can place yourself are temporary at best, depending on cooldowns and on other people taking the burden from you when you cannot “tank” any longer. But I want to be the tank/control! Or the healer! Oh, well. It is not a disaster – there are roles, potential for complexity, etc – but it is not my favourite system.
About lack or roles :
I would speak more about lack of fixed roles. From my playing session, a number of role are present : AOE DPS, OneManDPS, Healing, Control, Debuff ( Vulnerability for exemple, reduce Foes resistance to Damage by 30% ), Buff ( Guardian can protect all his team from 1 shot for exemple), rezzing, etc…
And as each skills take a certain time and some weapon are more directed to one role, you play only one role at a time. But cooldown prevent you from doing efficiently only one role , you have to switch.
In WvW, dominated by zerg, as a guardian, I was playing the role of zone control : forbiding access to a chokepoint, giving AOE healing to my partner, and giving speed buff to let them have more time to go out of danger zone if needed. When player started to be better, they will understand better which (multiple) roles they can achieve at every instant, and zerg will be more interesting !