In my view, the Trinity Needs to Come Back

In my view, the Trinity Needs to Come Back

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: lothefallen.7081

lothefallen.7081

No thank you no trinity otherwise i would play other mmos but im not.

couple of reasons :

1st you have healers and tanks thinking they are more important than everyone else in a group which in turns breeds a horrible community.

2nd There is no way in wow that a dps player get a quick group you always wait much longer than a tank or healer.

Also whats the point of standing still in a fight thats the most boring thing in other mmos for me doesnt matter what you do you always gets hit that is just not realistic its like standing still in front of a person with a gun and just wait for him to shoot you and hoping for the best.

It is not as if you didnt know that there is not gonna be a trinity either if that was your thing why switch to another mmo. If the wow type machanics is your thing then play wow that is the exact same reason i moved to guildwars the trinity is not my thing so i left wow and im happy.

Speaking about the realism… how realistic downstate is? You lay down and raise your hand so you can magically get back to fight endless times?

I won’t comment on finding party because I haven’t tried much yet. Looking at other posts tho it seems that finding one is easier with certain classes/specs. For me it doesn’t matter if I have to look longer because bleeds dont stack past 25 or because they already have 3 dpsers.

Looking at your post you are another one that thinks trinitiy=wow and thats the game on wnich you are basing your opinion. Well than I did every raid and dungeon in that crappy game and I hardly ever stood still during encounter, and I only stood still because I couldnt cast while moving and every second of not casting counts as dps loss.

On a side, in WoW after every encounter I knew I could have played better. I messed spell priority a bit, or I popped my cds a while too fast. I don’t have that feeling in gw2 there is no self improvement.

have you ever done any group content? or are you basing this soley off the open world events? If you did dungeons or fractals higher than 10, and didnt feel any teamwork, or see the importance of your build, playstyle and how well you execute, you were probably being carried by a team, because even ascalon catacombs can be pretty harsh without people who know what they are doing and how to effectively deal with situations, beyond a dps race.

I did a dungeon naked with my Guardian + Hammer and went AFK on bosses with 1 on auto and never died. Cleared the dungeon, got almost 70 silver, tokens, loot, and only had to move my character to the bossfights. Didn’t have to communicate with my team at all. Didn’t have a role, i just sat there, put down wards, and never died. I washed the dishes, watched a few youtube videos and made a bagel with cream cheese and capers all while auto-piloting.

Yeah, this is part of the reason why implementing a more solid trinity or direct healer class would improve this game socially, depth wise, and design wise. Then maybe the team could design an encounter in which the boss had real difficulty not just a health bar in scientific notation and 1HKO you had to dodge out of once ever 25 seconds.

Do people defending the game as it is not play it? Are they even lv 80 yet?


The Ardent Aegis
http://aa-guild.shivtr.com/

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Posted by: Mastruq.2463

Mastruq.2463

Without reading every other reply, if I wanted to play a game with more rigid roles (aka trinity) there are many to choose from, and I’d be playing Rift (or less likely WoW and EQ/EQ2).

That said I do agree that A.net has to make up their mind about which aspect of the game to focus on and set some improvements in motion for either PvE, WvW or SPvP. Right now all of those are in need of changes, and spreading out little additions is not as helpful as getting one aspect fixed completely and then moving to the next one.

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Posted by: Hobocop.1508

Hobocop.1508

No thank you no trinity otherwise i would play other mmos but im not.

couple of reasons :

1st you have healers and tanks thinking they are more important than everyone else in a group which in turns breeds a horrible community.

2nd There is no way in wow that a dps player get a quick group you always wait much longer than a tank or healer.

Also whats the point of standing still in a fight thats the most boring thing in other mmos for me doesnt matter what you do you always gets hit that is just not realistic its like standing still in front of a person with a gun and just wait for him to shoot you and hoping for the best.

It is not as if you didnt know that there is not gonna be a trinity either if that was your thing why switch to another mmo. If the wow type machanics is your thing then play wow that is the exact same reason i moved to guildwars the trinity is not my thing so i left wow and im happy.

Speaking about the realism… how realistic downstate is? You lay down and raise your hand so you can magically get back to fight endless times?

I won’t comment on finding party because I haven’t tried much yet. Looking at other posts tho it seems that finding one is easier with certain classes/specs. For me it doesn’t matter if I have to look longer because bleeds dont stack past 25 or because they already have 3 dpsers.

Looking at your post you are another one that thinks trinitiy=wow and thats the game on wnich you are basing your opinion. Well than I did every raid and dungeon in that crappy game and I hardly ever stood still during encounter, and I only stood still because I couldnt cast while moving and every second of not casting counts as dps loss.

On a side, in WoW after every encounter I knew I could have played better. I messed spell priority a bit, or I popped my cds a while too fast. I don’t have that feeling in gw2 there is no self improvement.

have you ever done any group content? or are you basing this soley off the open world events? If you did dungeons or fractals higher than 10, and didnt feel any teamwork, or see the importance of your build, playstyle and how well you execute, you were probably being carried by a team, because even ascalon catacombs can be pretty harsh without people who know what they are doing and how to effectively deal with situations, beyond a dps race.

I did a dungeon naked with my Guardian + Hammer and went AFK on bosses with 1 on auto and never died. Cleared the dungeon, got almost 70 silver, tokens, loot, and only had to move my character to the bossfights. Didn’t have to communicate with my team at all. Didn’t have a role, i just sat there, put down wards, and never died. I washed the dishes, watched a few youtube videos and made a bagel with cream cheese and capers all while auto-piloting.

Yeah, this is part of the reason why implementing a more solid trinity or direct healer class would improve this game socially, depth wise, and design wise. Then maybe the team could design an encounter in which the boss had real difficulty not just a health bar in scientific notation and 1HKO you had to dodge out of once ever 25 seconds.

Do people defending the game as it is not play it? Are they even lv 80 yet?

This doesn’t really say anything about the core mechanics, but the design of that particular dungeon/path, which is lacking in several places. Convenient how you failed to specify which dungeon you ran. Trying to do that in places like Arah and most higher level Fractals isn’t going to fly.

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Posted by: lothefallen.7081

lothefallen.7081

no, trinity is bad thing. whack a mole game is that way —-—————————->

you can fix all the current bad PVE mechanix you mentioned using what the game offers.

with three simple stages:

1) precision is OP and ruins the game, precision needs to be re-defined, it is the single most powerful stat that with small increase in it you double your damage output. and get different ‘on crit perks’ 100% (traits , sigils, foods etc) at the same time.
precision is what drives people to run in full ’zerkers trying to zerg everything…

2) healing power stat coefficient must be increased, it is so underwhelming it is not funny.

3) CC (immobilize, cripple, chill, stun) duration in PVE must be doubled for any meaningful encounter mechanic.

if you implement these three simple points, you don’t need trinity.

CC doubled? ok so there are no skills to remove a snare from an ally…theres no direct support. If you did this, people would die all the time or be forced into taking 3 CC removals. It’s clear that you have no idea how game systems work.


The Ardent Aegis
http://aa-guild.shivtr.com/

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Posted by: lothefallen.7081

lothefallen.7081

No thank you no trinity otherwise i would play other mmos but im not.

couple of reasons :

1st you have healers and tanks thinking they are more important than everyone else in a group which in turns breeds a horrible community.

2nd There is no way in wow that a dps player get a quick group you always wait much longer than a tank or healer.

Also whats the point of standing still in a fight thats the most boring thing in other mmos for me doesnt matter what you do you always gets hit that is just not realistic its like standing still in front of a person with a gun and just wait for him to shoot you and hoping for the best.

It is not as if you didnt know that there is not gonna be a trinity either if that was your thing why switch to another mmo. If the wow type machanics is your thing then play wow that is the exact same reason i moved to guildwars the trinity is not my thing so i left wow and im happy.

Speaking about the realism… how realistic downstate is? You lay down and raise your hand so you can magically get back to fight endless times?

I won’t comment on finding party because I haven’t tried much yet. Looking at other posts tho it seems that finding one is easier with certain classes/specs. For me it doesn’t matter if I have to look longer because bleeds dont stack past 25 or because they already have 3 dpsers.

Looking at your post you are another one that thinks trinitiy=wow and thats the game on wnich you are basing your opinion. Well than I did every raid and dungeon in that crappy game and I hardly ever stood still during encounter, and I only stood still because I couldnt cast while moving and every second of not casting counts as dps loss.

On a side, in WoW after every encounter I knew I could have played better. I messed spell priority a bit, or I popped my cds a while too fast. I don’t have that feeling in gw2 there is no self improvement.

have you ever done any group content? or are you basing this soley off the open world events? If you did dungeons or fractals higher than 10, and didnt feel any teamwork, or see the importance of your build, playstyle and how well you execute, you were probably being carried by a team, because even ascalon catacombs can be pretty harsh without people who know what they are doing and how to effectively deal with situations, beyond a dps race.

I did a dungeon naked with my Guardian + Hammer and went AFK on bosses with 1 on auto and never died. Cleared the dungeon, got almost 70 silver, tokens, loot, and only had to move my character to the bossfights. Didn’t have to communicate with my team at all. Didn’t have a role, i just sat there, put down wards, and never died. I washed the dishes, watched a few youtube videos and made a bagel with cream cheese and capers all while auto-piloting.

Yeah, this is part of the reason why implementing a more solid trinity or direct healer class would improve this game socially, depth wise, and design wise. Then maybe the team could design an encounter in which the boss had real difficulty not just a health bar in scientific notation and 1HKO you had to dodge out of once ever 25 seconds.

Do people defending the game as it is not play it? Are they even lv 80 yet?

This doesn’t really say anything about the core mechanics, but the design of that particular dungeon/path, which is lacking in several places. Convenient how you failed to specify which dungeon you ran. Trying to do that in places like Arah and most higher level Fractals isn’t going to fly.

It was CoE.


The Ardent Aegis
http://aa-guild.shivtr.com/

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Posted by: JoakimFA.4713

JoakimFA.4713

Before I say anything I just want to state that just because something works, it doesn’t mean that it’s good.

But moving on,

Without any designated role in parties everything is more or less a mess. Or if you want me to put it in a more nicer term, a zergfest.
Everyone does whatever they feel is correct at the time and there is hardly any structure.

Now yes, challenge me on that by saying that there is teamwork and coordination and that every class has his/her own speciality to help towards the team. But in the end the person next to you can be doing the exact same thing.

You don’t feel special for contributing to something because someone else can easily be doing the same thing. No dedicated roles (through classes, or in this case, Trinity) only leads to less specialization and overall makes the PvE experience somewhat… lacking.

Sure there are people who enjoy this style of play and I’m not here to challenge you on this. But it certainly isn’t correct to bash the OP for his own views just because they differ from what seems to be the majority of the GW2 fanboys.

As for my opinion, I’d have to agree with the OP. I’ve honestly never felt so bored in a PvE experience before in the years i’ve been playing video games. Most of the time im mashing buttons and dodging things not really paying attention to whats going on. And guess what? It works. It works with no problem. Why? Because I know the person next to me is doing the exact same job I’m supposed to be doing, so whats the point in me giving my 100%? To clear the dungeon faster? Yeah sure. But it’s tedious and not special at all.

But that’s just my opinion. And from what i’ve seen in this thread, it looks to be that opinions aren’t really welcome here.

Yoshioka [YUI] | Sea of Sorrows | Human Warrior. And a good looking one at that.
My Longbow tPvP Guide: http://tinyurl.com/Longbow-tPvP (out of date)

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Posted by: forrae.6708

forrae.6708

there just needs to be more emphasis and interest in the control and support roles, simple as that. encounters need to emphasize these rolls and make them more valuable. bosses are bland and uninteresting. i dont think the lack of the trinity or super defined roles is the issue, but a lack of compelling and challenging content.

as a side note, i havent noticed any sort of “we only want x y and z classes because the other five are horrible.” ive never been kicked from groups because i wasnt any of the “three best classes” in the game, nor have i ever seen anyone get kicked or turned down from joining a group for that reason.

thugged out since cubscouts

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Posted by: lothefallen.7081

lothefallen.7081

This thread, as a lot of the “we-want-trinity-back” threads boils down to players that cant play without someone carrying them or a heal/tank crutch. Saying that standard trinity MMO dungeons requires “skills” is a mockery of the word skill. 95% of all trinity MMO dungeons is about gear, as soon as you got the gear everything turns into a snoozefest.

I have played a lot of the top end dungeons in the most populare MMOs and skill wise they aint challenging, get the right gear, a proper MT and a main healer and go afk watching TV. Yes playing MT does require some skill, mostly placement of the boss/pulls and you got to control the encounters but everyone else just stands around doing what their addons tells them…

Thing is, trinity may be bad ; but this new system is cleary worse.

And obviously you didn’t try gw1

They got rid of trinity in Gw2, so, nice.
Trinity wasn’t so present in gw1. It was already redesigned in a way that allowed you to play without any “tank”. Melee were not thought to be “tanks”.
So let’s say gw1 either belong to the 5% or wasn’t trinity based.
Why change this system?

Actually, the whole “trinity” thing is more about logic than design in many games.
You got more armor? Frontline.
You deal dmges but your armor is lower? Midline.
You heal but don’t pretend to deal dmge? Why stay in the fire? Backline.
Gw1 was not a trinity game. Only a game with logical mechanics.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Team_roles
Gw1 wasn’t a “tank/heal/dps” game. But a “damage/support/control” game.
Control. That makes a game deeper. That was interesting and different.
And gear was not all. Nothing actually. You could have the best armor in terms of protection quite soon.

To destroy properly the trinity, you have to rip the game off of any real healing and allow everyone to tank and dps.
Which results in a fake synergy.

And its a well known fact that ppl that are horribad at GW2 PvE thinks that GW2 PvE is horribad.

PvE IS horribad.
Poor. Overeasy.
The mecanics and strategy implied are the same kind as those to play Assassin’s Creed multiplayer.
You can ""master"" the gameplay, but in some ways that are worthless.

Gw1 :

  • Energy
  • Activation of the skills displayed : rupts/anticipation
  • Conditions were not only meant to basically DPS, or rupt/blind poooosh like that ;
    there was synergy (the most basic one with warriors : bleeding, then allowing to apply deep wound (20% health reduction, healing less effective)), and something you can’t find without heal : pressure.
  • Enchantment : a simple one : echo : cast echo, then another spell “normally” : echo is replaced by this spell for X seconds ; attunements ; many and many different effects ; “protection” attribute for Monk : preventing dmges, not only healing.
  • Stances : speed, attack speed, attack blocking, even preventing hexes (mantras), or rupts…
  • Hexes : can interact with any other mecanic : slower attack, missed attack, dmges when casting a spell or attacking, longer activatingtimes, energy loss if you do some things (either attacking or trying to heal someone)…
  • Spells to remove hexes and enchantments, with various effects
  • Different AoE range
  • Many skills, and secondary prof, allowing you to create and play really different builds, with complete different gameplay.
  • IA was decent. And more. Targetting people together with AoE, targeting caster with skill A, using B on war, and then rupting Ele with C. Running from melee. Not staying in AoE… etc
    Not only HP HP HP HP and one big skill.

Synergy was the main word. Everything was tied together.
You touch player A, the whole team can fall in 3s.
Either it is the mesmer, who was keeping an elementalist under control, or the monk ; even a war, then preventing dmges.
But the other team could do the same.
Constant interacting on many levels.

In Gw2, what do we have?

  • Jump
  • Dodge
  • DPS
  • DPS
  • DPS
  • DPS

Yes, you must think on how and when use this skill or another. To deal DPS. Or basically counter DPS. Amazing.
Failed synergy.
Pseudo-complexity.

This basically….there was no trinity in GW1. There were healers that balanced out the rest of the mechanics, but you could not indefinitely tank in GW1 even with a healer. Everyone had a purpose in team play and you’re right, if my mesmer gets spiked or pressured out to where the monk can’t heal him, oh my, guess what? Lots of ele AoE and meteor coming my way. Same for any class in the team. This game is just homgeneized and dumbed, it’s time to rub that dust out of your eyes.


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http://aa-guild.shivtr.com/

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Posted by: Alice.8694

Alice.8694

GW2 dispenses with trinity combat mechanics in order to put its focus heavily on personal responsibility.

To put it in a cute analogy; guild wars 2 is a norns mmorpg.

If you are repeatedly dying in the holy trinity, the blame can be thrown about at one of the other roles. Tank is taking too much damage, healer is not healing enough, dps is taking aggro or not killing fast enough.
But with the guild wars 2 combat system they have tried to design it so you take the player and not the class. Which so far works until you hit brutally high levels of the fractals. Meaning the trinity is essentially dead, however… It also means that in its place there is a heavy emphasis on…

Personal responsibility.
In GW2 when you repeatedly go down and pose the question “What is going wrong?” the answer cannot be a scapegoat of the other roles. They answer can almost certainly be answered with “I’m not doing good enough, I must try harder.”

The problems the devs face is designing boss fights that maintain the focus of personal responsibility. This is why sadly all the world bosses feel lack luster. Every world boss revolves around the concept of many individuals fighting in a group against a boss.

But they are learning!
The fractals holds the greatest examples of how this new combat concept can work. The jade maw… The jade maw forces you to both maintain a heavy responsability for your own life by ensuring you have a crystal in your hand if you are beamed. But also requires team communication and cooperation to ensure there are crystals to hand regularly to counter attack the beam.

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Posted by: Shidoshi.4197

Shidoshi.4197

I agree with those who’d like added complexity, sadly, it won’t happen because this game was designed with a certain demographic in mind.

Lack of combat log, player inspection, high rewards for completing difficult tasks, etc.

It’s been made very difficult to hold anyone accountable for their actions, particularly in group content, on purpose. The tactics required to complete said content allows most everything to be more “inclusive” so that no one feels like they’re shut out of all that the game offers. Don’t like jumping puzzles? Cool, because the rewards for completing them are insignificant. Don’t like gear disparity? Cool, because gear is very easily obtained by anyone.

A lot of people define these features as “fun”, and I wouldn’t argue with that assessment, but they fail to realize not everyone experiences fun in the same way.

Why do you think they introduced fractals? While it still leaves much to be desired, they are starting to realize that they cannot sustain the desired number of players if they don’t provide some kind of tangible reward that separates the haves from the have nots.

I don’t necessarily believe the trinity is the answer, but I understand those who would like to see it. People want added depth, challenge, something to demonstrate the level of effort invested versus those who may or may not care as much or cannot for whatever reason. It exists here to some degree, but not enough.

I gave the game a chance, enjoyed a good deal, but I’m not inspired because most everything that can be accomplished feels too trivial, including PvE combat.

They can probably maintain a good number of players if things remain consistent the way they are, but we don’t know what “good” means to them. Arenanet is a company, not a person, and they will do what they feel is necessary to succeed.

Personally, I don’t think this design model is long lasting enough. They’ve taken “casual” too far for this type of game. I think boredom will become an increasing problem.

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Posted by: Horrorscope.7632

Horrorscope.7632

I did a dungeon naked with my Guardian + Hammer and went AFK on bosses with 1 on auto and never died. Cleared the dungeon, got almost 70 silver, tokens, loot, and only had to move my character to the bossfights. Didn’t have to communicate with my team at all. Didn’t have a role, i just sat there, put down wards, and never died. I washed the dishes, watched a few youtube videos and made a bagel with cream cheese and capers all while auto-piloting.

Do people defending the game as it is not play it? Are they even lv 80 yet?

This is an interesting post.

First you do what you do, but you would rather not have a loophole, by the last line you use. So why not make a video and send it to the devs, I am certain they would like to see this and fix it. I am certain they do not want this to be possible. It sounds like you are taking advantage of something, blame the game for allowing it, but then not taking steps on your end to help.

But I also have to buy your story at face value:

1. You were botting if you believe it or not.
2. You didn’t only have one on repeat, but you had to have all the wards on some type of macro as well.
3. Somehow you washed dishes and did things with cream cheese but were able to move to non-boss encounter to non-boss encounter. Not sure how this was done legit.

No sure if serious. But no matter how that was done, if that was done, I’m sure the team would love to rebalance somethings to then make your game more challenging for you and everyone.

PS And most importantly. Please share your build, I’d love to try it out. I don’t kid.

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Posted by: vic.7065

vic.7065

It’s a well known fact that GW2’s PVE is horrible.

Speak for yourself.

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Posted by: critickitten.1498

critickitten.1498

This basically….there was no trinity in GW1. There were healers that balanced out the rest of the mechanics, but you could not indefinitely tank in GW1 even with a healer. Everyone had a purpose in team play and you’re right, if my mesmer gets spiked or pressured out to where the monk can’t heal him, oh my, guess what? Lots of ele AoE and meteor coming my way. Same for any class in the team. This game is just homgeneized and dumbed, it’s time to rub that dust out of your eyes.

GW1 did use the trinity. To claim otherwise is being dishonest.

There were dedicated healer classes, dedicated tanks, and dedicated damage. And groups could not run without all three elements in play. The tank drew fire, the damage damaged, and the healer healed. That is the textbook definition of trinity game play.

People need to stop viewing GW1 through blatant nostalgia goggles. I love GW1 as a game, but as someone who played it for years, I can tell you that you’re not being honest with yourself. GW1 was textbook trinity game play. The fact that some classes could adjust their roles depending on what skills they had does not change this fact.

GW2, in that respect, is similar to GW1, because it also has trinity game play (just of a more vague sort).

Remember when our developers talked about “strengthening the core game”?
How’d that work out for us so far?
Now let’s try some ideas that will really work.

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Posted by: Alipius.4783

Alipius.4783

This basically….there was no trinity in GW1. There were healers that balanced out the rest of the mechanics, but you could not indefinitely tank in GW1 even with a healer. Everyone had a purpose in team play and you’re right, if my mesmer gets spiked or pressured out to where the monk can’t heal him, oh my, guess what? Lots of ele AoE and meteor coming my way. Same for any class in the team. This game is just homgeneized and dumbed, it’s time to rub that dust out of your eyes.

GW1 did use the trinity. To claim otherwise is being dishonest.

There were dedicated healer classes, dedicated tanks, and dedicated damage. And groups could not run without all three elements in play. The tank drew fire, the damage damaged, and the healer healed. That is the textbook definition of trinity game play.

People need to stop viewing GW1 through blatant nostalgia goggles. I love GW1 as a game, but as someone who played it for years, I can tell you that you’re not being honest with yourself. GW1 was textbook trinity game play. The fact that some classes could adjust their roles depending on what skills they had does not change this fact.

GW2, in that respect, is similar to GW1, because it also has trinity game play (just of a more vague sort).

Yes and no.
Prophecy : tank/heal/dps : right.
But after? No more. You could play without any tank, because instead of “drawing fire” you could control it. Or for a short time, heal/prot enough the entire party.

Trinity is abstract, and pretty wrong as a concept. Because as I said, if you don’t put everyone without heal, and able to tank/dps the exact same way, you see something that may look like trinity, inevitably, because it comes from “logic”.
But the gameplay and the mecanics in fight are real, and modulate what can be the “trinity”, even in presence of what could be seen as tank/heal/dps.
If you find anything wrong in the list I made for the strenght of Gw1 gameplay, tell me what ; or at least, where we find something as deep in Gw2.
A poor trinity gameplay would be as bad as the gameplay of gw2.

But once more, Gw1 wasn’t only about “heal/tank/dps”, there were variations, and many things working together to handle.

There is one good thing about gw2. I play gw1 again.

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Posted by: RoChan.1926

RoChan.1926

snip

Firstly, I am going to ignore the extra fluff you added to your post that is highly unrelated to the topic at hand.

Secondly, for clarification, I wish that you and others requesting for a ‘role’ in dungeons/events explain exactly what you define a role as. Because when I’m on my lvl 80 Engi DPSing/Group Healing/Tanking I feel I have a ‘role’ that I can change at any given time in or out of the dungeon.

Let me elaborate. As an Engineer I have myself spec’d to how I want them to be for solo PVE situations. Engis use toolkits to beef up their weapon system since we only have a rifle, shield, and pistols. When running a dungeon a simple swap of weapons/toolkits changes my solo game play to a group composition of healer since I can create a large HoT or a small HoT depending on how the rest of my PUG is doing. At the same time I’ve grabbed my grenades and pistols (or riffle for CC) to give me some burst damage that allows me to DPS mobs down with the rest of my group and with my armor Tough/Power/Vital (along with my melee toolkit) I can tank for a bit of time if someone needs to be rez’d or if by chance the Boss decides he wants to be my best of friend.

Now that is an example without any trait changes just simple toolkit swap. If I wanted to be really tanky, I can swap around some traits along with toolkits and armor and suddenly I’m mitigating the damage from the rest of my group.

Now that’s my Engineer, dealing with my lvl 80 Elementalist is something else because no matter what she can’t be a tank or at least not effectively (now not before the removal of bunker Eles). But some weapons/trait swaps and I can be anywhere from full glass cannon DPS to Tanky DPS to DPS/Support to Support. The difference being what I bring to the table at the time (weapon sets/utilities) and how much I know my class.

See I am of agreement that a Trinity is not needed in this game, I’ve had enough and though I love my priests in TERA (a dynamic healer) I like the ability to change on a whim without having to log into another character. BTW TERA also has dodges so dodging/kiting is essential but DPS checks are killing the game since certain gear scores/crystals are required to do dungeons or you’ll get kicked from a group. Not to mention that the RNG on getting the right weapon and the death penalty of destroying those expensive crystals makes grouping even harder. On top of that if you’re a certain DPS/healer/tank class you’ll also get kicked. The trinity removed the need for a tank/DPS/healer roles because grouping IS a pain GW2 allows you to group up without the pain of elitism tied to certain roles. Swapping of hats allows players to play how they want as well as play to the situation with little changes to play style.

Is there room for improvement in classes so that they are more robust and can bring more to a group i.e. an Ele being an effective tank? Yes but that is outside of the placement of roles and trinities. Perhaps I don’t know my class/armors/sigils well enough to make a tank Ele or ANet needs to balance my class more (That is very true as well) but your pinning the blame on something that isn’t an issue to begin with.

Optee Kaal Allusion | The Evil Empire
[TRY][POV]
“Kitten the yaks, so persistent about everything.” -Ebay

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Posted by: dimgl.4786

dimgl.4786

2/10 would not read again

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Posted by: Erasculio.2914

Erasculio.2914

In Gw2, what do we have?

  • Jump
  • Dodge
  • DPS
  • DPS
  • DPS
  • DPS

Do we?

Let’s take an example. A Guardian using a hammer. Available skills:

1) The “Hammer Swing” chain: does damage, but its main effect is the Symbol of Protection on the third strike, giving Protection to allies in the area.

2) Mighty Blow: the strongest attack in the weapon, also a combo finisher.

3) Zealot’s Embrace: immobilization in a line. Negligible damage.

4) Banish: throws an enemy away. Negligible damage.

5) Ring of Warding: no damage. Creates a ward enemies cannot cross.

Now, a bad player who can only understand the concepts of “tank/DPS/healer” would spam skills 1 and 2 on recharge, nothing more.

A good player would use all those skills and the utility in each of them in order to benefit himself and his party.

There is no need for a one-word role. The role of this character is defined by the skills available to him. It’s not just “tank”, not just “DPS”, not just “healer” – it’s actually a more complex system than that.

Therefore, it’s easy to understand why so much criticism against the removal of the trinity: some players cannot understand the game unless they are given a very clear cut and simple role such as “tank”, “DPS” or “healer”. The moment you add more words to the role description, the sky begins to fall for some people.

“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons

(edited by Erasculio.2914)

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

I find myself starting to wonder if the problem is control, or lack of suck, of the battlefield. Tanking is in a sense about control, being able to control who the mobs focus on. Or similarly deny them the ability to do certain things.

But with the aggro mechanic being a virtual black box – join one PUG and you can’t shake the mob no matter how much you try, join another and you find the exact same mob ignoring you completely – and what controls we have, interrupts, usually being on long cooldowns – making them timing of their use a life or death issue – the players end up having a distinct lack of control over the battle.

End result is that we are fighting on the mobs terms, rather than our own. For some that may be exciting, and i would not want to deny them the right to do things that way if they so choose, but for others it becomes a real frustration.

For an example outside of the dungeons, i can’t really deal with more than one mob aggroing me by locking down most of them while dealing with one. I have to deal with them all constantly or i find myself back at a waypoint with damaged armor.

End result is that i learn that if i want to get anything done i need to find ways to dump a massive amount of AOE damage on them in a short amount of time. This because i can’t really compensate for lack of AOE via crowd controls.

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Posted by: critickitten.1498

critickitten.1498

Yes and no.
Prophecy : tank/heal/dps : right.
But after? No more. You could play without any tank, because instead of “drawing fire” you could control it. Or for a short time, heal/prot enough the entire party.

Trinity is abstract, and pretty wrong as a concept. Because as I said, if you don’t put everyone without heal, and able to tank/dps the exact same way, you see something that may look like trinity, inevitably, because it comes from “logic”.
But the gameplay and the mecanics in fight are real, and modulate what can be the “trinity”, even in presence of what could be seen as tank/heal/dps.
If you find anything wrong in the list I made for the strenght of Gw1 gameplay, tell me what ; or at least, where we find something as deep in Gw2.
A poor trinity gameplay would be as bad as the gameplay of gw2.

But once more, Gw1 wasn’t only about “heal/tank/dps”, there were variations, and many things working together to handle.

You are creating a false reality.

Having “variations” to trinity game play does not mean that the trinity does not exist.

GW1 relies on the rigid trinity of damage, tank, and healer. These roles all must exist in the party. What this means is that you’re forced to have someone tanking, someone must be healing, and someone must be doing the damage. You argue that it’s possible to run without a tank, I’m telling you right now that whoever is drawing fire is the “tank” by default. How rigidly you stick to those roles is partially up to your skillbar, yes, I do not deny that. But the trinity is very clearly there. It’s an undeniable fact of GW1.

GW2 relies on a loose trinity of damage, support, and control. These roles are not all forced onto you, meaning that yes, it is possible to have a party of five people who are all focused on damage. But it’s also unlikely, especially in more challenging areas of the game. My parties in Fractals have had to shuffle traits and weapons around so that they could provide some sort of service to the party as a whole. There is more to GW2 than just the damage.

They both have trinity game play, just of a different sort. The reason that you perceive zero strategy in GW2 beyond “damage, damage, and more damage” is because you aren’t actually watching your party members as closely as you think, and you have no clue how they are specced or what role they’re trying to fulfill. I’ve run dungeons with a warrior who I thought for sure was running a damage-heavy guy because of how much he would leap into combat, only to find out that he was running a support build through copious use of shouts (and traits that make shouts more supportive for party play).

It’s easy to detect who is fulfilling which role in GW1 because all you have to do is look at their class. GW2 doesn’t make that distinction clear, because any class can do any of the three main combat roles, and your party will still succeed if you’re smart and work together. You can run a dungeon with full DPS, or you can run a dungeon with a mixed bunch, and neither is invalid. What you perceive as “nothing but DPS” is more varied than you realize, and the main reason you don’t see it is because you can’t just look at a player’s class and say “okay, he’s the healer”.

Mind that this is only true for standard PvE. WvW….I’m not gonna lie, that’s just a blatant zergfest.

Remember when our developers talked about “strengthening the core game”?
How’d that work out for us so far?
Now let’s try some ideas that will really work.

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

3) Zealot’s Embrace: immobilization in a line. Negligible damage.

for 2 seconds with a 15 second cooldown. And you better get them ducks to line up in some sense.

4) Banish: throws an enemy away. Negligible damage.

Part of the strongest controls in the whole game, as the target is put out of it for as long as the flight takes and the animation for them to get back up. But it comes with a 25 second cooldown so you better get that timing right.

5) Ring of Warding: no damage. Creates a ward enemies cannot cross.

an interesting idea, but it lasts for 5 seconds and spends 40 seconds on cooldown.

Again, better time that use correctly.

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Posted by: Erasculio.2914

Erasculio.2914

Again, better time that use correctly.

Yes, the game would be incredibly shallow if players were just using skills on recharge, instead of using them correctly. Your point is…?

“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons

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Posted by: Geren.1945

Geren.1945

The point is with most effects so ridiculously short in length, you might as well not bother with em’, since they won’t probably make much of a difference and your time could probably be better spent just smashing stuff in the face instead.

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Posted by: Snowy.9580

Snowy.9580

The control sure needs addressing. Nothing is funnier than the “Benny Hill” chase around a dungeon with a squeling Ele being chased by 3 or 4 mobs. The others all stopped to look & laugh at one point, but I guess the game is fine.. move on, nothing to see here!

We’ll stop to sleep when the game is the best possible game we think it can be.
We’ve been awake since March 2007! Please help!
“GW2 the game with more rolls than roles!”

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Posted by: Silentsins.3726

Silentsins.3726

The point is with most effects so ridiculously short in length, you might as well not bother with em’, since they won’t probably make much of a difference and your time could probably be better spent just smashing stuff in the face instead.

Then, your enge drops glue shot for another 3 seconds before going back to DPS, followed by your ele, who also happens to be paying attention, extends the control even further by throwing frozen ground in front of that. Meanwhile, the whole enemy group tries to run at your group in a ball the whole time.

You don’t get it. The above is a common example of how the game is intended to be played. How it IS played by good players. Most people would rather complain then figure that out though…

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Posted by: Alipius.4783

Alipius.4783

Yes and no.
Prophecy : tank/heal/dps : right.
But after? No more. You could play without any tank, because instead of “drawing fire” you could control it. Or for a short time, heal/prot enough the entire party.

Trinity is abstract, and pretty wrong as a concept. Because as I said, if you don’t put everyone without heal, and able to tank/dps the exact same way, you see something that may look like trinity, inevitably, because it comes from “logic”.
But the gameplay and the mecanics in fight are real, and modulate what can be the “trinity”, even in presence of what could be seen as tank/heal/dps.
If you find anything wrong in the list I made for the strenght of Gw1 gameplay, tell me what ; or at least, where we find something as deep in Gw2.
A poor trinity gameplay would be as bad as the gameplay of gw2.

But once more, Gw1 wasn’t only about “heal/tank/dps”, there were variations, and many things working together to handle.

You are creating a false reality.

Having “variations” to trinity game play does not mean that the trinity does not exist.

Agreed, what I said first was

It was already redesigned in a way that allowed you to play without any “tank”. Melee were not thought to be “tanks”.

which is more realistic.

whoever is drawing fire is the “tank” by default.

On this I do not fully agree. I wasn’t meaning “melee”, in which case it would have been appropriate to precise this, but really “nothing on frontline to take it all”. Which actually means only a frontline and a backline ; but everyone taking dmges, not only one player.
If you’d go with 6 El and 2 Mo, El casting on the same foes, there wouldn’t be one more focused in theory than another, so, not any “tank”

The reason that you perceive zero strategy in GW2 beyond “damage, damage, and more damage” is because you aren’t actually watching your party members as closely as you think, and you have no clue how they are specced or what role they’re trying to fulfill. I’ve run dungeons with a warrior who I thought for sure was running a damage-heavy guy because of how much he would leap into combat, only to find out that he was running a support build through copious use of shouts (and traits that make shouts more supportive for party play).

It’s easy to detect who is fulfilling which role in GW1 because all you have to do is look at their class. GW2 doesn’t make that distinction clear, because any class can do any of the three main combat roles, and your party will still succeed if you’re smart and work together. You can run a dungeon with full DPS, or you can run a dungeon with a mixed bunch, and neither is invalid. What you perceive as “nothing but DPS” is more varied than you realize, and the main reason you don’t see it is because you can’t just look at a player’s class and say “okay, he’s the healer”.

It’s not a matter of being able to do some things, it’s the importance of these things in the gameplay. There I switch to the other discussion :

3) Zealot’s Embrace: immobilization in a line. Negligible damage.

for 2 seconds with a 15 second cooldown. And you better get them ducks to line up in some sense.

4) Banish: throws an enemy away. Negligible damage.

Part of the strongest controls in the whole game, as the target is put out of it for as long as the flight takes and the animation for them to get back up. But it comes with a 25 second cooldown so you better get that timing right.

5) Ring of Warding: no damage. Creates a ward enemies cannot cross.

an interesting idea, but it lasts for 5 seconds and spends 40 seconds on cooldown.

Again, better time that use correctly.

These are tools that you use “sometimes”, sporadically. The gameplay is not based on it, it’s actually as if I’d say a stance a monk could take in his build in gw1 was a strong part of all he can do. It helps from time to time, but that’s all.
Like the pause in Hitman to kill many targets together. It doesn’t learn you how to aim, how to sneak.
In games you can do (or not) 4 things : dps/tank/heal/control. Let’s say everyone is more or less “tank”, as you said.
In Gw2, all can DPS.
But heal and control are at the same level, used from time to time

There is one good thing about gw2. I play gw1 again.

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Posted by: Alipius.4783

Alipius.4783

Well… I can’t edit to add this… too long…

The point is with most effects so ridiculously short in length, you might as well not bother with em’, since they won’t probably make much of a difference and your time could probably be better spent just smashing stuff in the face instead.

Then, your enge drops glue shot for another 3 seconds before going back to DPS, followed by your ele, who also happens to be paying attention, extends the control even further by throwing frozen ground in front of that. Meanwhile, the whole enemy group tries to run at your group in a ball the whole time.

You don’t get it. The above is a common example of how the game is intended to be played. How it IS played by good players. Most people would rather complain then figure that out though…

It is control, indeed, I can’t say it isn’t…
But god, you say it is the way “good players” play, it seems to requiere everybody’s attention, and it’s only… what? Snare? to be able to run in front of mobs? Nice for melee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyYmN2dzJ18
Last time I used it, it was for D3. Here’s another sign

That’s not what I’d call control, or with many more things acting on at least cast/attack, in different ways

There is one good thing about gw2. I play gw1 again.

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Posted by: Teofa Tsavo.9863

Teofa Tsavo.9863

Group PvE in this game is an absolute clusterfudge. No other way to put it.

Lack of a holy trinity is good for a soloist game. Oddly, my soloing chars in traditional Trinity games do a better job soloing with NO heals at all than my Wars here do.. with heals. Good concept.. implementation is pretty fail.

I agree that any class should somewhat be able to fill any role.. but.. give them the tools. Nobody can heal spec enough to heal. Nobody can dps spec enough to take aggro. All we have is a pile of players doing their own thing, good or bad, and hoping something dies. The only fundamentally useful group centric skill is the rez, tbh, because it is obvious and can only be used the “right” way, (mostly)

Combos are accidental. CC is random and sometimes detrimental. Other things just come out of the blue.. like having a boss tied up and pounding on it with my War, only to have some idiot knock it halfway across the zone for no other reason than the skill was up.

Lack of any role means every group encounter in the world is like a Pug from hell. No one is learning anything. Everyone just runs up and unloads. It is sooo fun being in the middle of pwning a projectile reflecting boss..and having 3 rangers and an engineer run up and unload every projectile skill they possess and kill everyone but the boss. Roles tend to make people think about wth they are doing in a group.

Ley lines. The perfect solution to deadlines and writers block. Now in an easy open Can.

(edited by Teofa Tsavo.9863)

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Posted by: Vasham.2408

Vasham.2408

So I was farting around earlier and something came to mind to try and show you people the error of your ways in defending GW2’s poor PVE design. This, as you know, is the Jade Maw encounter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcKG4IJD6X4

These guys went in completely blind and killed the boss in a single attempt. The encounter is simple:

  • Phase 1 – Kill tentacles
  • Phase 2 – Kill Jade Colossi
  • Phase 3 – Kill the Jade Maw
  • All Phases – Dodge the beam or catch it with reflecting crystals. Throw them back at the Maw to damage it. Repeat, then collect loot.

I don’t mention agony because let’s face it, agony on that boss is more a hard gating mechanic than anything which requires skill to avoid. Now having shown you that, let’s look at another tentacle monster from another game, Akylios: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efUmhV3V80U

And because a lot of what’s going on doesn’t make sense if you never fought him, here’s his strategy: http://www.endgameguides.com/Rift/Raids/Hammerknell/13

This kill came after nearly a month of attempts to learn the encounter.

This is what I mean by saying the lack of a trinity can’t support complex, challenging encounter design. Considering Trion released that fight on their second major content patch for their first MMO ever and Arenanet is still making simplistic content with their second content patch fast approaching on their second MMO to date it says a lot about Arenanet’s commitment to good game design.

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Posted by: critickitten.1498

critickitten.1498

So I was farting around earlier and something came to mind to try and show you people the error of your ways in defending GW2’s poor PVE design. This, as you know, is the Jade Maw encounter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcKG4IJD6X4

These guys went in completely blind and killed the boss in a single attempt. The encounter is simple:

  • Phase 1 – Kill tentacles
  • Phase 2 – Kill Jade Colossi
  • Phase 3 – Kill the Jade Maw
  • All Phases – Dodge the beam or catch it with reflecting crystals. Throw them back at the Maw to damage it. Repeat, then collect loot.

I don’t mention agony because let’s face it, agony on that boss is more a hard gating mechanic than anything which requires skill to avoid. Now having shown you that, let’s look at another tentacle monster from another game, Akylios: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efUmhV3V80U

And because a lot of what’s going on doesn’t make sense if you never fought him, here’s his strategy: http://www.endgameguides.com/Rift/Raids/Hammerknell/13

This kill came after nearly a month of attempts to learn the encounter.

This is what I mean by saying the lack of a trinity can’t support complex, challenging encounter design. Considering Trion released that fight on their second major content patch for their first MMO ever and Arenanet is still making simplistic content with their second content patch fast approaching on their second MMO to date it says a lot about Arenanet’s commitment to good game design.

Er, so it’s considered “good game design” to create content that requires an entire month to formulate a strategy for?

I mean, I like difficult games….within reason (i.e. not Dark Souls)….but that doesn’t sound like good design to me. But then, I was never a masochistic sort of gamer, and I don’t understand why people like to torture themselves in that fashion.

Remember when our developers talked about “strengthening the core game”?
How’d that work out for us so far?
Now let’s try some ideas that will really work.

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Posted by: Vasham.2408

Vasham.2408

So I was farting around earlier and something came to mind to try and show you people the error of your ways in defending GW2’s poor PVE design. This, as you know, is the Jade Maw encounter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcKG4IJD6X4

These guys went in completely blind and killed the boss in a single attempt. The encounter is simple:

  • Phase 1 – Kill tentacles
  • Phase 2 – Kill Jade Colossi
  • Phase 3 – Kill the Jade Maw
  • All Phases – Dodge the beam or catch it with reflecting crystals. Throw them back at the Maw to damage it. Repeat, then collect loot.

I don’t mention agony because let’s face it, agony on that boss is more a hard gating mechanic than anything which requires skill to avoid. Now having shown you that, let’s look at another tentacle monster from another game, Akylios: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efUmhV3V80U

And because a lot of what’s going on doesn’t make sense if you never fought him, here’s his strategy: http://www.endgameguides.com/Rift/Raids/Hammerknell/13

This kill came after nearly a month of attempts to learn the encounter.

This is what I mean by saying the lack of a trinity can’t support complex, challenging encounter design. Considering Trion released that fight on their second major content patch for their first MMO ever and Arenanet is still making simplistic content with their second content patch fast approaching on their second MMO to date it says a lot about Arenanet’s commitment to good game design.

Er, so it’s considered “good game design” to create content that requires an entire month to formulate a strategy for?

I mean, I like difficult games….within reason (i.e. not Dark Souls)….but that doesn’t sound like good design to me. But then, I was never a masochistic sort of gamer, and I don’t understand why people like to torture themselves in that fashion.

It’s not about masochism, it’s the desire to be challenged and to overcome those challenges. There’s a reason WoW, even with it’s pug friendly Looking for Raid has a market for Heroic Mode raids and why Rift with it’s audience releases PVE content that’s a challenge to overcome. You can argue that we’re the minority among PVE players and I wouldn’t say you are wrong, but other developers have shown their ability to release not only content for the masses but also content for those who crave difficult endgame. Hell Rift’s entire niche in the market is due to it’s sole focus on a singular endgame difficulty.

And that’s why we have a problem with the prospect of never facing PVE that’s a real challenge. Kiting and dodging isn’t a challenge, massive HP pools aren’t a challenge, and Agony isn’t a challenge. The latter is especially bad since without it Fractals would be steamrolled even on the higher levels. It’s artificial difficulty at it’s worst, a resistance based gating mechanic Blizzard realized ages ago isn’t worth the hassle compared to fights that are legitimately hard to beat. There’s a reason WoW hasn’t had a resistance based encounter for the last three expansions.

Could Arenanet fix the problem without adding the trinity to GW2? Maybe, but the chances are slim to none. It would take creative encounter design on a level I’m not sure they have or are willing to commit to and even then without that necessary foundation it still couldn’t compare to more popular MMOs in terms of difficulty.

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Posted by: UnderdogSMO.9428

UnderdogSMO.9428

I find myself starting to wonder if the problem is control, or lack of suck, of the battlefield. Tanking is in a sense about control, being able to control who the mobs focus on. Or similarly deny them the ability to do certain things.

But with the aggro mechanic being a virtual black box – join one PUG and you can’t shake the mob no matter how much you try, join another and you find the exact same mob ignoring you completely – and what controls we have, interrupts, usually being on long cooldowns – making them timing of their use a life or death issue – the players end up having a distinct lack of control over the battle.

End result is that we are fighting on the mobs terms, rather than our own. For some that may be exciting, and i would not want to deny them the right to do things that way if they so choose, but for others it becomes a real frustration.

For an example outside of the dungeons, i can’t really deal with more than one mob aggroing me by locking down most of them while dealing with one. I have to deal with them all constantly or i find myself back at a waypoint with damaged armor.

End result is that i learn that if i want to get anything done i need to find ways to dump a massive amount of AOE damage on them in a short amount of time. This because i can’t really compensate for lack of AOE via crowd controls.

my guild has become extreamly good at useing things like Fears and knock backs to closter mobs together than seround them ((takeing back control)) and makeing short work of them

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Posted by: critickitten.1498

critickitten.1498

It’s not about masochism, it’s the desire to be challenged and to overcome those challenges. There’s a reason WoW, even with it’s pug friendly Looking for Raid has a market for Heroic Mode raids and why Rift with it’s audience releases PVE content that’s a challenge to overcome. You can argue that we’re the minority among PVE players and I wouldn’t say you are wrong, but other developers have shown their ability to release not only content for the masses but also content for those who crave difficult endgame. Hell Rift’s entire niche in the market is due to it’s sole focus on a singular endgame difficulty.

See, that’s the thing. I do enjoy challenges and overcoming them, but I’ve never understood why people put such a tremendous emphasis on them to the point where the game becomes TOO difficult for most players to digest. That sort of design doesn’t make sense to me.

I don’t disagree that GW2’s challenges aren’t at that same level of difficulty, but I’m not actually sure that’s a bad thing, either.

As for Agony, I think it shouldn’t exist at all, to be honest.

Remember when our developers talked about “strengthening the core game”?
How’d that work out for us so far?
Now let’s try some ideas that will really work.

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Posted by: Eladriel.7295

Eladriel.7295

They done away with the holy trinity for a reason and I like it that way..

Together we stand in the face of evil!

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Posted by: UnderdogSMO.9428

UnderdogSMO.9428

Group PvE in this game is an absolute clusterfudge. No other way to put it.

Lack of a holy trinity is good for a soloist game. Oddly, my soloing chars in traditional Trinity games do a better job soloing with NO heals at all than my Wars here do.. with heals. Good concept.. implementation is pretty fail.

I agree that any class should somewhat be able to fill any role.. but.. give them the tools. Nobody can heal spec enough to heal. Nobody can dps spec enough to take aggro. All we have is a pile of players doing their own thing, good or bad, and hoping something dies. The only fundamentally useful group centric skill is the rez, tbh, because it is obvious and can only be used the “right” way, (mostly)

Combos are accidental. CC is random and sometimes detrimental. Other things just come out of the blue.. like having a boss tied up and pounding on it with my War, only to have some idiot knock it halfway across the zone for no other reason than the skill was up.

Lack of any role means every group encounter in the world is like a Pug from hell. No one is learning anything. Everyone just runs up and unloads. It is sooo fun being in the middle of pwning a projectile reflecting boss..and having 3 rangers and an engineer run up and unload every projectile skill they possess and kill everyone but the boss. Roles tend to make people think about wth they are doing in a group.

thats more of a problem with Player’s not so much the game (unless we just talking about in the open world) If a player is to stupid to stop shooting when the Boss use’s a reflection skill how is that the game’s falt

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

Heh, i do wonder if ANet should implement a APM gauge in this game…

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Posted by: Vasham.2408

Vasham.2408

It’s not about masochism, it’s the desire to be challenged and to overcome those challenges. There’s a reason WoW, even with it’s pug friendly Looking for Raid has a market for Heroic Mode raids and why Rift with it’s audience releases PVE content that’s a challenge to overcome. You can argue that we’re the minority among PVE players and I wouldn’t say you are wrong, but other developers have shown their ability to release not only content for the masses but also content for those who crave difficult endgame. Hell Rift’s entire niche in the market is due to it’s sole focus on a singular endgame difficulty.

See, that’s the thing. I do enjoy challenges and overcoming them, but I’ve never understood why people put such a tremendous emphasis on them to the point where the game becomes TOO difficult for most players to digest. That sort of design doesn’t make sense to me.

I don’t disagree that GW2’s challenges aren’t at that same level of difficulty, but I’m not actually sure that’s a bad thing, either.

As for Agony, I think it shouldn’t exist at all, to be honest.

That’s why the successful MMOs have learned to make multiple versions of content that everyone can experience, but can still be skin rippingly difficult based on the setting. It appeals to everyone without leaving one group unsatisfied. The problem here is what can you do to make GW2’s content more challenging?

More HP on mobs? It’s already too high

Mobs hitting harder? With only two dodge rolls before needing to recharge that’s not viable.

I already covered how Agony is bullcrap, so no more needs to be said.

See what I mean? Without a solid foundation to design encounters around, without something more than “dodge and kite” there is no way Arenanet can appeal to anyone but the most ubercasual players. That’s fine, but even casual players want more at some point. I may be into hardcore content but I never underestimate a casual player’s desire to challenge themselves, a mistake Arenanet is making right now. They assume casuals will be content with this boring, ultra easy PVE for all time. The truth is they won’t be.

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Posted by: critickitten.1498

critickitten.1498

That’s why the successful MMOs have learned to make multiple versions of content that everyone can experience, but can still be skin rippingly difficult based on the setting. It appeals to everyone without leaving one group unsatisfied. The problem here is what can you do to make GW2’s content more challenging?

More HP on mobs? It’s already too high

Mobs hitting harder? With only two dodge rolls before needing to recharge that’s not viable.

I already covered how Agony is bullcrap, so no more needs to be said.

See what I mean? Without a solid foundation to design encounters around, without something more than “dodge and kite” there is no way Arenanet can appeal to anyone but the most ubercasual players. That’s fine, but even casual players want more at some point. I may be into hardcore content but I never underestimate a casual player’s desire to challenge themselves, a mistake Arenanet is making right now. They assume casuals will be content with this boring, ultra easy PVE for all time. The truth is they won’t be.

I dunno about this notion that they’re only appealing to casual players. I would most definitely argue that notion, considering just how much of the game is rendered too difficult or time-consuming for truly casual players….but that’s besides the point.

I actually thought that Fractals was a step in the right direction: bosses that have some sort of “trick” to them, in the vein of classic Zelda bosses. Okay, they’re not “difficult” in the modern sense, but they’re still a heck of a lot more fun than the previous bosses. I think if they rebuild all dungeons to be more like Fractals, that’ll be a positive step for the game.

Remember when our developers talked about “strengthening the core game”?
How’d that work out for us so far?
Now let’s try some ideas that will really work.

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Posted by: Vasham.2408

Vasham.2408

That’s why the successful MMOs have learned to make multiple versions of content that everyone can experience, but can still be skin rippingly difficult based on the setting. It appeals to everyone without leaving one group unsatisfied. The problem here is what can you do to make GW2’s content more challenging?

More HP on mobs? It’s already too high

Mobs hitting harder? With only two dodge rolls before needing to recharge that’s not viable.

I already covered how Agony is bullcrap, so no more needs to be said.

See what I mean? Without a solid foundation to design encounters around, without something more than “dodge and kite” there is no way Arenanet can appeal to anyone but the most ubercasual players. That’s fine, but even casual players want more at some point. I may be into hardcore content but I never underestimate a casual player’s desire to challenge themselves, a mistake Arenanet is making right now. They assume casuals will be content with this boring, ultra easy PVE for all time. The truth is they won’t be.

I dunno about this notion that they’re only appealing to casual players. I would most definitely argue that notion, considering just how much of the game is rendered too difficult or time-consuming for truly casual players….but that’s besides the point.

I actually thought that Fractals was a step in the right direction: bosses that have some sort of “trick” to them, in the vein of classic Zelda bosses. Okay, they’re not “difficult” in the modern sense, but they’re still a heck of a lot more fun than the previous bosses. I think if they rebuild all dungeons to be more like Fractals, that’ll be a positive step for the game.

GW2’s content is very casual, almost insultingly so. It’s less casual and more “we assume our players are idiots.” There is no real challenge so much as there is extreme tedium. High HP pools on mobs to burn through, instant kill moves with no telegraph for when to dodge, Lengendaries where the only thing legendary is the grind to aquire them.

Fractals added gimmicks and an resistance gear check, but no challenge outside artifical difficulty. It’s quite frankly not enough.

Why do you keep making this thread? it pops up every few months, the collective community tears you a new kitten but the OP’s sheer bigotry negates any semblance of thought that isn’t horribly fallacious in its logic. Anet isn’t about to tear apart the entirety of their combat engine to play to your ridiculous fascination in such a tired system. The entire proposal is ridiculous; as if any company with even a fraction of a brain would go to make such radical changes on the whim of a single player’s opinion. Go play Tera if you want GW2 combat with the old trinity.

Problems with this statement:

  • This is my first time making a thread about this, and I’m not the only one who has. It’s a valid concern and you can’t just toss it aside because you disagree.
  • You don’t know how to use the word bigotry properly.
  • You also don’t know much about logical fallacies either, though there’s plenty of ad hominem in your post
  • I think Tera is morally reprehensible for reasons I won’t mention here in the name of decency and not going on an off topic rant.

(edited by Vasham.2408)

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Posted by: critickitten.1498

critickitten.1498

GW2’s content is very casual, almost insultingly so. It’s less casual and more “we assume our players are idiots.” There is no real challenge so much as there is extreme tedium. High HP pools on mobs to burn through, instant kill moves with no telegraph for when to dodge, Lengendaries where the only thing legendary is the grind to aquire them.

While I agree with some of your points, there’s one thing I don’t agree with.

And that’s this notion that easy content = casual content. These terms are not interchangeable. Just because content is easy does not mean it is designed for casual players. This is something that has always bothered me, ever since its inception with the rise of mobile gaming and the idea of the “casual” gamer. People don’t understand what “casual” means any more, they just think it refers to anything which is mind-numbingly easy to do.

There is nothing challenging about obtaining a Legendary, for example, but it’s definitely not something a casual player is going to be capable of doing. Nothing tough about farming up all of the materials, but it’s not a task that a casual player can perform in any reasonable span of time.

We need to get this illusion out of people’s heads before this discussion can be productive.

“Casual” content refers to the amount of time that must be committed, whereas “easy” content refers to the level of skill required. Easy and casual are not the same thing. GW2’s “endgame” is most certainly not casual-friendly, but I would certainly agree with you that it is pretty easy.

Remember when our developers talked about “strengthening the core game”?
How’d that work out for us so far?
Now let’s try some ideas that will really work.

(edited by critickitten.1498)

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Posted by: Aequitas.6402

Aequitas.6402

Let’s be honest, there isn’t much ANet can do now, 4 months after release. They can’t just go “Oh, the Guardian’s a healer now, and Warriors are tanks. The rest do DPS”, the game itself isn’t designed that way – and that’s leaving out the new behind the community would tear them if ANet did that.

I mean, I won’t deny your right to talk about this topic, but in my opinion this discussion isn’t leading anywhere.

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Posted by: Fritz.5026

Fritz.5026

if they are going to continue trying to be a PVE game then I would agree that the trinity needs to be brought into the game.

as it stands the pve is so mindlessly boring that I am 100% positive it is driving more people away than it is getting to stay.

if this is to a be a pve focused game they need a more intricate system of classes and abilities that makes pve entertaining and feel as if it takes some modicum of player ability.

.
if they want to focus on being a pvp game, then the trinity needs to stay gone.

however that does not seem to be the case and they cannot keep pulling off this flip flop routine with what their intentions for end game are before it just drives off whats left of the player base. pretty soon newer and better games will be coming out, they always do.

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Posted by: MaRko.3165

MaRko.3165

What do you mean ‘needs to come back’?

Its not like you bought it knowing it has a trinity system, and then they changed it. This game never had a trinity system as far as I know.

Do you know what is the cost of redesigning the classes to become a trinity system (assuming you are right that trinity is better)? Might as well make a new game.

That being said, I still don’t understand why would you force yourself on GW2 if you liked the trinity system and you know that this game doesn’t have it.

I didn’t force myself onto anything. I knew this game wouldn’t have the trinity and I was naive enough to think Arenanet would be capable of making it work. Clearly my hope was misplaced.

As for the cost of redesign? That’s not my problem. Arenanet is the one that needs to add some structure to their PVE or face the consequences of a declining playerbase.

I can’t understand the thinking that GW2 has to be a buy once and play forever game.

Does it have ‘replayable elements’? Sure. Much like any other single player game does.

- but wait – this is a MMO!

As someone who has never played a ‘mmo’ before I don’t see how the ‘mmo’ element makes this game any different. I’ll simply play the existing content and if entertained or interested enough I may roll another toon and play through again (or a few more times).

If you don’t like the fact that this game has no ‘trinity’ then go play something else.
(frankly, I LIKE the fact that I can ingest most of the content without getting in some group or cliche before hand.)

“I was playing Farmville and a kitten MMO GW2 broke out of it…”
I cut my gaming teeth on Adventure&ZorkI,II,III.
i7-2600K/8G/GTX570SLI/WIN7/Stereoscopic_3D

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Posted by: Fritz.5026

Fritz.5026

p.s. the holy trinity is still in this game, its just no so apparent as other games.

there has been multiple events where my elementalist had no chance to ever tank the boss, I would die in 2 hits, but I could do more damage faster than anyone else who was there. so as long as that guardian guy tanks the boss for me, I can blow its brains out.

sounds like tank and dps are already in effect and working in the game, though maybe not in the absolute traditional sense.

even the healing role is represented by warriors who dedicate themselves to healing shouts and other similar builds.

.
if gw2 was being completely honest, all they could really claim is it has trinity light.

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Posted by: Moderator.9532

Moderator.9532

Please remember to keep the discussion on topic, respectful and productive.

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Posted by: Yaki.9563

Yaki.9563

It’s not about masochism, it’s the desire to be challenged and to overcome those challenges. There’s a reason WoW, even with it’s pug friendly Looking for Raid has a market for Heroic Mode raids and why Rift with it’s audience releases PVE content that’s a challenge to overcome. You can argue that we’re the minority among PVE players and I wouldn’t say you are wrong, but other developers have shown their ability to release not only content for the masses but also content for those who crave difficult endgame. Hell Rift’s entire niche in the market is due to it’s sole focus on a singular endgame difficulty.

See, that’s the thing. I do enjoy challenges and overcoming them, but I’ve never understood why people put such a tremendous emphasis on them to the point where the game becomes TOO difficult for most players to digest. That sort of design doesn’t make sense to me.

I don’t disagree that GW2’s challenges aren’t at that same level of difficulty, but I’m not actually sure that’s a bad thing, either.

As for Agony, I think it shouldn’t exist at all, to be honest.

That’s why the successful MMOs have learned to make multiple versions of content that everyone can experience, but can still be skin rippingly difficult based on the setting. It appeals to everyone without leaving one group unsatisfied. The problem here is what can you do to make GW2’s content more challenging?

More HP on mobs? It’s already too high

Mobs hitting harder? With only two dodge rolls before needing to recharge that’s not viable.

I already covered how Agony is bullcrap, so no more needs to be said.

See what I mean? Without a solid foundation to design encounters around, without something more than “dodge and kite” there is no way Arenanet can appeal to anyone but the most ubercasual players. That’s fine, but even casual players want more at some point. I may be into hardcore content but I never underestimate a casual player’s desire to challenge themselves, a mistake Arenanet is making right now. They assume casuals will be content with this boring, ultra easy PVE for all time. The truth is they won’t be.

They can do the same thing that games with a trinity can do. It’s also interesting to note that those other games with “multiple versions” basically just make the bosses hit harder and mistakes less forgiving. The very thing you are ranting about being the only option for GW2.

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Posted by: Yaki.9563

Yaki.9563

GW2’s content is very casual, almost insultingly so. It’s less casual and more “we assume our players are idiots.” There is no real challenge so much as there is extreme tedium. High HP pools on mobs to burn through, instant kill moves with no telegraph for when to dodge, Lengendaries where the only thing legendary is the grind to aquire them.

This has nothing to do with having a trinity or not.

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Posted by: CMF.5461

CMF.5461

Reposting here as I think it is more oriented to continue this thread and deleting my own post on the topic.


I believe I see a trend with a lot of the gripes with this game and I think it has to do with players not feeling special or different.

How is that? Well the biggest gripes are about lack of skill involved in play, lack of combat roles, lack of meaningful choices in character development. One of the ones that boggles me is how upset people get that Trehern is the hero in the story and you are the assistant (I really enjoyed the story and thought the break away from “you” are the hero interesting and meticulously crafted so that the story could be consistently run from each character without having to change drastically, since you are a side character not the main).

We are all expected to dps/support/control in combat. Gear doesn’t matter as far as fighting too much. What profession doesn’t matter in a group as much as people like it to. “Play your way” tries to encourage creativity while not trying to penalize players for bad choices.

So what we got is everyone is equal.

Question is, is that good or bad? Do we now have choices because we are all the same, or is anything you do futile because you will still just be the same?

Bottom line for me is I am still entertained and intrigued, but I think that is because I am trying to break the “same” mold so I like to theory craft and find boundaries to push and niches to fill.

This maybe why some people like role based groups so they can be special and distinct versus the masses. Someone to tank, someone to heal, and then dps fights to see who is “the best”.

So final question: How can we find ways to feel special and different, or does that not need to matter and we need to look past that?

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Posted by: forrae.6708

forrae.6708

This is what I mean by saying the lack of a trinity can’t support complex, challenging encounter design. Considering Trion released that fight on their second major content patch for their first MMO ever and Arenanet is still making simplistic content with their second content patch fast approaching on their second MMO to date it says a lot about Arenanet’s commitment to good game design.

im not sure how you wouldnt be able to make complex encounters without a trinity system. actually, i think it would be easier to make challenging a complex encounters with GW2’s system, its just Anet doesnt seem to be focusing in on that at the moment. they may never focus on that because that might not be a market they want to appeal to, which is fine by me. sure i like challenging content and i would love to see something really difficult implemented in GW2, but so far from what i have seen, i think that it was built with PvP more in mind, which is odd considering the lack of sPvP content, but we’ll save that for a different thread.

thugged out since cubscouts

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

Right now it seems that ANet is leaning towards APM/timing challenging rather than cerebral challenge.

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Posted by: Nayru.4537

Nayru.4537

What do you mean ‘needs to come back’?

Its not like you bought it knowing it has a trinity system, and then they changed it. This game never had a trinity system as far as I know.

Do you know what is the cost of redesigning the classes to become a trinity system (assuming you are right that trinity is better)? Might as well make a new game.

That being said, I still don’t understand why would you force yourself on GW2 if you liked the trinity system and you know that this game doesn’t have it.

I didn’t force myself onto anything. I knew this game wouldn’t have the trinity and I was naive enough to think Arenanet would be capable of making it work. Clearly my hope was misplaced.

As for the cost of redesign? That’s not my problem. Arenanet is the one that needs to add some structure to their PVE or face the consequences of a declining playerbase.

I can’t understand the thinking that GW2 has to be a buy once and play forever game.

Does it have ‘replayable elements’? Sure. Much like any other single player game does.

- but wait – this is a MMO!

As someone who has never played a ‘mmo’ before I don’t see how the ‘mmo’ element makes this game any different. I’ll simply play the existing content and if entertained or interested enough I may roll another toon and play through again (or a few more times).

If you don’t like the fact that this game has no ‘trinity’ then go play something else.
(frankly, I LIKE the fact that I can ingest most of the content without getting in some group or cliche before hand.)

So you like playing on your own. But you bought an MMO. This game isn’t for you.

Yes – my name is Nayru and I am a guy – we play games too, get over it.