Guild Wars 2

Looking at the debates around the current PVE META and how Dungeons are played by many, it seems to me that the “No Trinity” approach is one of the main causes of many of the issues currently debated. How so?

With a Trinity system you have a player who focuses on soaking most damage and controlling where the boss or mobs will be standing and brings a good set of interrupts (the tank) and another one focusing on keeping everyone alive, removing conditions and usually a healthy dose of utility (the healer). With those two specialised players, the other three can focus on DPS and go “Zerk” so to speak. It also means — and that is key — that each group will by design bring a minimal level of control/utility/heals.

The concept of having no Trinity and allowing any class to play any role is quite noble and at least tries to move away from the MMO standard that many were getting tired with.

But in essence it seems that, in GW2’s case, it ended up with instance fights (boss fights or specific events/mob groups in a dungeon) that have either very little mechanics (so that any type of group can handle them) and are boring; or are quite hard for PUGs to handle (because they often miss certain skills or abilities to handle the mechanics).

When you PUG in a Trinity MMO, at least you are sure that there will be someone bringing a minimal amount of CC/interrupts/soaking and another one who will bring good survival utility. So designers can work around that and make some assumptions valid for all groups. Without trinity you can never be sure that you will have the right builds to handle some of the mechanics (e.g. enough CC, the right type of conditions/interrupts or enough heal/condi removal, etc.).

Many Dungeon paths in GW2 seem to be on the “low mechanics” side of things and are favored by farmers and PUGs. There are very little mechanics and content can be handled fast for easy rewards. It made the META evolve towards an all-out DPS race.

Those dungeon paths that are longer or have more mechanics are harder for PUGs and are avoided. I am going to venture that this would not be the case if there was a Trinity because, by definition, each group would be bringing a built-in minimal level of control/interrupt/utility skills and therefore would be better to handle a larger variety of fights.

So, in essence:

No Trinity = easy boring fights; or fights too hard for PUGs

And, as most fights in GW2 instances lean heavily on the easy side:

No Trinity + Dodge + downed state + short-range buffs = current META (zerk gear, stack, dodge on telegraphed attack)

I am not calling for bringing Trinity into GW2, but it seems to me that the absence of Trinity means that fights/encounters have to be designed radically differently and (if we want them to be interesting) will probably be too hard for PUGs. Unfortunately at the moment we have a lot of very bland fights with a booooring META.

Zel

Tl;dr: without a Trinity designers end up producing Dungeon content that is either too hard for PUGs because a bunch of random guys without harmonized builds cannot handle more complex fights; or content that is too boring because the most efficient answer becomes “DPS race”. With a Trinity system, designers can at least start from shared minimal basis of control/utility/heals in all groups that allow for bolder design.

Can we have one game that does not copy WoW, please just this one game…

Thanks A-net if it does not lag your game is pretty awesome as it is.

You’re partially right.
Trinity help PUGs a lot since it reduces communication, planning and other forms of true teamwork to the very minimum.
A game without distinct roles, where utility is spread over all party members, can offer greater challenges, on the other hand, for organized groups.

ANets has somehow managed to make the content easy enough so organized groups are not challenged and PUGs get quite annoying experiences from time to time :P

The problem with GW2 dungeons is not the lack of trinity at all. That assertion makes absolutely no sense when GW2 was designed from the ground up to eliminate the necessity of the Trinity.

It’s like saying that WoW’s success as an MMO was due to the graphics at the time. It is a complete non-sequitur.

What is the problem with GW2’s PvE is 2 things: Defiance, and slow, instagib attacks.

Defiance: It was a slapdash bandaid solution to bosses being stunlocked to death since the public betas and it has never been re-addressed since. Defiance single handedly eliminated the support/control archetype from dungeon running builds. Content designers have since designed around the Defiance mechanic also, further entrenching this halfway house solution. There are practically no worthy attacks to interrupt because you can just DPS race the boss down before the sequence initiates. Interrupting is also not rewarded with a shorter encounter either – which further erodes support/control

Slow, instagib attacks – Bosses attack slowly and hit extremely hard, often meaning that Toughness is essentially a wasted stat because it slows you down. What attacks there are are therefore one-shot mechanics to punish players that don’t dodge. Again, this further reinforces the DPS race meta.

What should be done is:

• Reworking defiance to re-introduce Support/Control. Interrupting a key boss attack should be rewarded with bonus damage to shorten the encounter – the boss should not simply repeat the attack with 5 extra defiance stacks to completely negate your CC efforts. This is an interim solution that requires no extra AI – just scripting for the boss to delay its next attack, and for a percentage of its health to drop off and make the encounter easier.

• Bosses must attack faster, but hit softer. Toughness is a wasted stat at the moment. Semi-tanky builds are numerically inferior to Glass cannons. With this change, Toughness does have a value in surviving an encounter along with all the other support stats like Boon Duration or Healing Power. Before you start, Agony is not this mechanic as Agony is a Gear check.

Anyway, thanks for the non-sequitur.

Happy travails!

Vargamonth.2047:

ANets has somehow managed to make the content easy enough so organized groups are not challenged and PUGs get quite annoying experiences from time to time :P

Or the experienced players and groups Roflstomp the content (usually by skipping nearly everything), and the less experienced players get frustrated and only gain repair cost and start looking up ways to cheese it up, or outright buy ‘completion’.

It’s not so much the lack of trinity, but something broader, the lack of well-defined roles, that makes challenging content very unfriendly to pugs.

The way the current damage/ control/ support roles are setup, it pretty much only works in highly organized teams (with voice software), or when content is easy/ shallow enough. When everyone can do a little bit of everything, redudancy will be aplenty within pug teams, and strategy will suffer.

It has nothing to do with World of Warcraft. WoW didn’t invent any of this.

The trinity doesn t exist for a reason.

1 profession can be tanky + dps + defensive support
1 profession can be dps + offensive support

Those 2 profession requires to stay in banner/guardian range…

What makes different pve from www?
Bosses won t kite and will just rush wherever players are…

Players when they can avoid fighting in the banner area of a warrior….or they will try to move when a warrior spam his 100B or axe chain.

Those skills are simply OP without a proper AI….but being tied to the pet professions its better to nerf something Other….

Try to kill coe Alpha with a speed clear party and pug playing ranged…..
See how long will it take.

Zelu.1692:

Many Dungeon paths in GW2 seem to be on the “low mechanics” side of things and are favored by farmers and PUGs. There are very little mechanics and content can be handled fast for easy rewards. It made the META evolve towards an all-out DPS race.

Why Gw2 PvE is lame in a nutshell

DiogoSilva.7089:

It’s not so much the lack of trinity, but something broader, the lack of well-defined roles, that makes challenging content very unfriendly to pugs.

The way the current damage/ control/ support roles are setup, it pretty much only works in highly organized teams (with voice software), or when content is easy/ shallow enough. When everyone can do a little bit of everything, redudancy will be aplenty within pug teams, and strategy will suffer.

Yes, I guess this is what I was trying to get at.

GW2 got rid of the Trinity, but the instances/dungeon design does not feel like they tried to replace it with anything else meaningful. So in the end many Dungeon paths do not require players to do much, beside doing DPS and avoiding highly telegraphed attacks. So it gets boring quite fast, and once you combine that with a few of the other problems discussed here, it gives us the current Meta.

If instances design was going more towards requiring certain roles within party (e.g. if handling conditions and/or mobs through CC in a specific fight was required, or you needed some guy to go around soak big attacks to keep the field free of AoE for the rest of the party, etc.) this is where the “play as you want” situation would make PUGs’ lifes even harder: without the kind of coordination you describe you would very likely risk getting a mixed group without the abilities needed to handle the encounters.

While Trinity systems are getting quite stale over time, at least they bring some level predictability that allow designers to build encounters that are a bit more complex than what we currently have AND at the same time guarantee that a PUG group will get some basic abilities mix to handle them.

I do not want Trinity, but would welcome a game where Instances require you to do a bit more than max-DPS + dodge.

But if GW2 was to bring forward new (or reworked) Dungeon paths that required players to fill more specific roles, PUGs would likely suffer because the in-game LFG would not ensure that the groups get the right mix of abilities (whereas LFG in a Trinity game would force a minimal mix by making you to wait on a tank or healer).

Zel

MonMalthias.4763:

The problem with GW2 dungeons is not the lack of trinity at all. That assertion makes absolutely no sense when GW2 was designed from the ground up to eliminate the necessity of the Trinity.

It’s like saying that WoW’s success as an MMO was due to the graphics at the time. It is a complete non-sequitur.

What is the problem with GW2’s PvE is 2 things: Defiance, and slow, instagib attacks.

Defiance: It was a slapdash bandaid solution to bosses being stunlocked to death since the public betas and it has never been re-addressed since. Defiance single handedly eliminated the support/control archetype from dungeon running builds. Content designers have since designed around the Defiance mechanic also, further entrenching this halfway house solution. There are practically no worthy attacks to interrupt because you can just DPS race the boss down before the sequence initiates. Interrupting is also not rewarded with a shorter encounter either – which further erodes support/control

Slow, instagib attacks – Bosses attack slowly and hit extremely hard, often meaning that Toughness is essentially a wasted stat because it slows you down. What attacks there are are therefore one-shot mechanics to punish players that don’t dodge. Again, this further reinforces the DPS race meta.

What should be done is:

• Reworking defiance to re-introduce Support/Control. Interrupting a key boss attack should be rewarded with bonus damage to shorten the encounter – the boss should not simply repeat the attack with 5 extra defiance stacks to completely negate your CC efforts. This is an interim solution that requires no extra AI – just scripting for the boss to delay its next attack, and for a percentage of its health to drop off and make the encounter easier.

• Bosses must attack faster, but hit softer. Toughness is a wasted stat at the moment. Semi-tanky builds are numerically inferior to Glass cannons. With this change, Toughness does have a value in surviving an encounter along with all the other support stats like Boon Duration or Healing Power. Before you start, Agony is not this mechanic as Agony is a Gear check.

Anyway, thanks for the non-sequitur.

Happy travails!

Outstanding post, bravo. +1

Even in games with a trinity you have the same problem with content. It not always fame mechanics, you have to many people with to many varying degrees of skill so you will always have a set if people who think content is to hard and not fair and another set you think its to easy and should be harder. The only way I can see this changing is to add a hard/heroic mode option to dungeons that is harder and maybe drops more tokens of something.

just an fyi, I would not be doing the hard mode dungeons. Shot I don’t even do dungeons I play wvw.

I bought this game because there was no trinity… Oh and active defense. The dodging attacks was huge selling point for me.

its a learn to play issue.

but its also true that some things anet do defy logic. like projectiles cannot be blocked. but never stated until realized too late.

the game was about avoiding damage instead of taking direct hits. but im not sure where the direction its going anymore.

this isnt gw1… its a totally different thing all together. please, if you want the trinity, you can play gw1. dont polute gw2, its been poluted too much already. so much complains so much nerfing.

everyone is like “oh kitten thats strong” but never “woah that dude really knows how to do this and that.” and then nerf hammer hits, everyone gets bashed regardless if they are abusing or not.

even worse, people are asking for stealth to be removed, etc silly questions.

just play as is.. im sick of the changes they keep making on the game till the point i even played toons without traits being assigned without knowing it was reset…

sigh…

And there we are… A nerf to full DPS builds is in no way an incentive to players trying out other approaches. It does not make for a more varied PVE environment, nor does it fix the bad boring mechanics of PVE fights and bosses.

Bosses are still the same boring punching balls, instances are still better cleared with an “all out DPS race”, utility or CC builds are no more needed than they were. Clearing dungeons will be just a bit longer and players will have to play their active defenses cleverly a bit longer than they did till now.

PVE in open world remains faceroll in any gear
PVE in instances remains a boring “hit the pinata hard and fast” approach

gg

Zel

It’s safe to say they won’t ever add a trinity system, so players shouldn’t be afraid of that. Also, this game doesn’t need the Trinity to get rid of that DPS-race thing-they do need to redo a lot of enemy A.I. mechanics, though, to make it more fun to many playstyles other than sheer brute force.

Berserkers should be Berserkers. Not everyone is a Berserker. (And yes, I enjoy playing my Berserker’s geared Elementalist-because he IS a Berserker, rather than just to speedclear-but lament how “lesser” are the other options in comparison, other than adding RPG flavor-which is VERY unfortunate.)

Yeah I know they won’t add it. And, as I said, I don’t want it (seems ppl have a hard time reading).

It’s just that if they redo enemy A.I. mechanics and fights (which would be the best solution to a more interesting Meta), PUGs will have it hard in absence of clearly defined roles. But I would prefer it that way, rather than as a DPS race.

Zelu.1692:

But in essence it seems that, in GW2’s case, it ended up with instance fights (boss fights or specific events/mob groups in a dungeon) that have either very little mechanics (so that any type of group can handle them) and are boring; or are quite hard for PUGs to handle

They have been boring (and all the old dungeon are remaining that way), but all the new dungeons / dungeon pathes are really fun! I think at the start of guild wars the devs had the problem to not know where they could go with the whole no-trinity-concept, but they have totally improved their product, and I’m sure that they will in the future.

So designers can work around that and make some assumptions valid for all groups.

also true, but now they have new mechanics they can work around with f.e. that everybody ca dodge and heal.

I am going to venture that this would not be the case if there was a Trinity because, by definition, each group would be bringing a built-in minimal level of control/interrupt/utility skills and therefore would be better to handle a larger variety of fights.

You cannot assume that. One of the dev f.e. said, that in gw1 there was a large amount of players who only took their first gained 10 skills, and never changed them. Difficulty wise, the amount of possible difficult levels is the right direction to go. .e. fractals, everybody should be able to beat fractals up to level 10, from which point it is going to get hard and hard, and you should pick the right profession specialization and distribution.

And the most important part:
I don’t have to wait 50 minutes for a god kittening random tank. Yes, that happen in other games! Now I can play with my friend without forcing one into a specific role. This is the best thing ever happen to pugs!

Conclusion:
Try to be constructive on the individual dungeon mechanics, but please, don’t mess with the whole absence of the trinity system.

Maybe just start with changing some basic Ai and aggro rules.

Make mobs move out of AoE.

Make mobs go after the nasties that hit them hard and have little armor and health. Those would be the more tactical targets (since there are no real healers). That’d make berserker more risky and other gear variants more appealing.