Guild Wars 2

I’m piggy-backing this from another thread where this topic came up. I feel a very high degree of confidence and certainty that this always has been and remains GW2’s biggest problem. They were right to boot WoW’s trinity system – it’s antiquated and far too restrictive, simplistic, and pigeonholing, but they failed spectacularly in replacing it – i.e. executing on the concept of soft roles that players could immerse themselves in.

Players going into 5-man dungeons, which, IMO is the glue that holds MMOs together, and experiencing tedious disarray due to the lack of any role structure whatsoever, is almost without question the #1 reason why the game started hemorrhaging players right after launch. I had many friends that started playing that all gave me that same feedback when they stopped. In fact, most of them couldn’t even find anything else to really criticize about the game (except maybe the PS, which doesn’t matter nearly as much, and the problems with the karka event).

Arenanet ultimately ended up blaming the dungeon team and firing them (or, at least, the main guy behind the dungeons), when the problem was more on the side of profession design, and remains that way to this day, although elite specs started chipping away at the “DPS only” meta. Needless to say, this reaction was very short-sighted. FotM can never carry all the weight of all five-man content. The game needs new, expansive, thematic dungeons out in the world that don’t have barriers to entry. Arenanet needs to reinvest in dungeons and in tinkering with the professions to provide viability to several different roles, with the ability to both heavily focus on up to three and the ability to hybridize between them. An example would be a Revenant using Glint and Jalis, specializing in tanking and boon support, or an elementalist specializing in healing and control. Here are a few possible options that players could specialize in:

a.) healing
b.) boon support
c.) tanking
d.) control
e.) aoe
f.) burst power damage
g.) condition damage

The current status quo is largely a factor of two issues – a.) lack of skill options (especially weapon skills), which heavily favors DPS over anything else for most professions, and. b.) differential scaling, where damage scales with stats in a more significant way than any sort of healing, defense, or condi/boon duration. Both of these need to continue being addressed.

tldr version – Players should have the ability to heavily focus on one-three of these roles, having less ability in the others, and some of each should be required to be successful in group content. We’re seeing the beginnings of this with profession updates for HoT, and the trend needs to continue. They need to also bring back real 5-man dungeons.

I’ve done quite a few dungeons, always as part of either a PUG or a group made up of whoever happened to be free in my guild at the time, and maybe some friends they knew who were online. In many cases at least 1 person (often me) has been doing that path for the first time ever.

And yet I’ve never experienced “utter confusion, chaos, and disarray due to the lack of any role structure”, not even once.

Sometimes one person (or more) doesn’t understand a bosses mechanics. Sometimes that doesn’t become apparent until after the fight has started (maybe because they triggered it before we had time to explain) so the people who know what to do have to explain as the fight is happening. But that wouldn’t be solved by having a rigid role structure. (Maybe having a designated party leader would help, but that can cause all kinds of problems of it’s own.)

Yes dungeon runs are less structured than in my other MMO, because everyone attacks together and if anyone gets downed it’s whoever is nearest or able to reach them first who gets them back up instead of 1 person being responsible for the whole party. But I don’t find that confusing and as far as I’m aware neither does anyone else I’ve ever done a dungeon with.

So I don’t understand what this problem is that you want fixed, or how adding new dungeons would fix it. If they’re so broken wouldn’t adding more of them make the problem worse and not better? You don’t fix a car crash by piling a few more cars into it.

Danikat.8537:

I’ve done quite a few dungeons, always as part of either a PUG or a group made up of whoever happened to be free in my guild at the time, and maybe some friends they knew who were online. In many cases at least 1 person (often me) has been doing that path for the first time ever.

And yet I’ve never experienced “utter confusion, chaos, and disarray due to the lack of any role structure”, not even once.

Sometimes one person (or more) doesn’t understand a bosses mechanics. Sometimes that doesn’t become apparent until after the fight has started (maybe because they triggered it before we had time to explain) so the people who know what to do have to explain as the fight is happening. But that wouldn’t be solved by having a rigid role structure. (Maybe having a designated party leader would help, but that can cause all kinds of problems of it’s own.)

Yes dungeon runs are less structured than in my other MMO, because everyone attacks together and if anyone gets downed it’s whoever is nearest or able to reach them first who gets them back up instead of 1 person being responsible for the whole party. But I don’t find that confusing and as far as I’m aware neither does anyone else I’ve ever done a dungeon with.

So I don’t understand what this problem is that you want fixed, or how adding new dungeons would fix it. If they’re so broken wouldn’t adding more of them make the problem worse and not better? You don’t fix a car crash by piling a few more cars into it.

Because the game is 4 years old, and most people that started playing it left a long time ago. Those left (that still bother to run dungeons) have just conformed to the one-dimensional mindless DPS meta. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a serious problem. And it’s one that needs to be addressed because the game needs new dungeons, and to have its launch dungeons refreshed.

Einlanzer.1627:

Danikat.8537:

I’ve done quite a few dungeons, always as part of either a PUG or a group made up of whoever happened to be free in my guild at the time, and maybe some friends they knew who were online. In many cases at least 1 person (often me) has been doing that path for the first time ever.

And yet I’ve never experienced “utter confusion, chaos, and disarray due to the lack of any role structure”, not even once.

Sometimes one person (or more) doesn’t understand a bosses mechanics. Sometimes that doesn’t become apparent until after the fight has started (maybe because they triggered it before we had time to explain) so the people who know what to do have to explain as the fight is happening. But that wouldn’t be solved by having a rigid role structure. (Maybe having a designated party leader would help, but that can cause all kinds of problems of it’s own.)

Yes dungeon runs are less structured than in my other MMO, because everyone attacks together and if anyone gets downed it’s whoever is nearest or able to reach them first who gets them back up instead of 1 person being responsible for the whole party. But I don’t find that confusing and as far as I’m aware neither does anyone else I’ve ever done a dungeon with.

So I don’t understand what this problem is that you want fixed, or how adding new dungeons would fix it. If they’re so broken wouldn’t adding more of them make the problem worse and not better? You don’t fix a car crash by piling a few more cars into it.

Because the game is 4 years old, and most people that started playing it left a long time ago. Those left (that still bother to run dungeons) have just conformed to the one-dimensional mindless DPS meta. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a serious problem. And it’s one that needs to be addressed because the game needs new dungeons, and to have its launch dungeons refreshed.

That might make sense if it wasn’t for the fact that the dungeon runs I was referring to are spread throughout those 4 years. My experience in the first year was much the same as it is now, except maybe it was a little bit harder because full sets of ascended equipment didn’t exist and most people didn’t even have ascended rings.

So these people who quit because of dungeons must have done it very early on, and honestly the games population seems absolutely fine without them. I’d be surprised if they’re still following the game closely enough after all these years to be persuaded back and I doubt it’s really worth the time and effort Anet would have to spend to re-work all the professions (not to mention all the existing players they’d upset by doing that) and devoting a chunk of time to adding to one niche game mode in the hope that some people who quit just after launch choose to give the game another look-in.

I agree about the “more small group content”. Fractals are a thing (even if I’m truly not convinced by the agony system) but more dungeons with sub-stories would definitely be a plus.

As for the roles… I think if was a good idea to get rid of trinity. Yet, I’m somehow not so happy about the way it’s done. Some classes have a feeling of “good for everything = good for nothing”. And it leads to the DPS only meta as the most effective way to have things done.

The only solution I can see is designing class so that they could run and be effective in, say, 3 of the roles you’re stating (3 as in 3 traits lines). That requires a deep revamp of mechanics of a huge bunch of utilities in roughly every classes. Good luck.

ThomasC.1056:

I agree about the “more small group content”. Fractals are a thing (even if I’m truly not convinced by the agony system) but more dungeons with sub-stories would definitely be a plus.

As for the roles… I think if was a good idea to get rid of trinity. Yet, I’m somehow not so happy about the way it’s done. Some classes have a feeling of “good for everything = good for nothing”. And it leads to the DPS only meta as the most effective way to have things done.

The only solution I can see is designing class so that they could run and be effective in, say, 3 of the roles you’re stating (3 as in 3 traits lines). That requires a deep revamp of mechanics of a huge bunch of utilities in roughly every classes. Good luck.

Yeah, this is pretty much the same argument I’m making. My overarching point is that there needs to be some sort of formal paradigm implemented regarding roles, and profession design needs to start having a direction built out that flows from that paradigm.

Einlanzer.1627:

Players going into 5-man dungeons, which, IMO is the glue that holds MMOs together, and experiencing utter confusion, chaos, and disarray due to the lack of any role structure whatsoever, is almost without question the #1 reason why the game started hemorrhaging players right after launch.

I question that. I know lots of people who like this game because each player can decide on their role, lots who like the lack of structure, and most of those I know who have left have done so because of other reasons.

Since I can’t accept the premise of the OP, I find it hard to agree with the suggestions.

^^ I agree. His whole argument hinges on the fact that you can’t have ‘good, instanced team content’ unless people have roles that are well defined. Obviously, that’s just a personal opinion. Much of the other stuff in there is not factual, like that this lack of roles is the #1 reason the game ‘hemorrhaged’ players. Not even Anet would know why any specific players leave the game, because there is not even a trigger to them leaving … but somehow, THIS guy knows why.

The utter confusion, chaos and disarray is due to people looking for a structure that was never there; OK, probably some level of people wondering who ‘the healer is’, but once you figure out what Anet is trying to do, you adjust and realize it’s much simpler than trinity.

Any fix is on the players side, to recognize some defined role is not necessary in this game to succeed in dungeons/fractals.

Obtena.7952:

^^ I agree. His whole argument hinges on the fact that you can’t have ‘good, instanced team content’ unless people have roles that are well defined. Obviously, that’s just a personal opinion. Much of the other stuff in there is not factual, like that this lack of roles is the #1 reason the game ‘hemorrhaged’ players. Not even Anet would know why any specific players leave the game, because there is not even a trigger to them leaving … but somehow, THIS guy knows why.

The utter confusion, chaos and disarray is due to people looking for a structure that was never there; OK, probably some level of people wondering who ‘the healer is’, but once you figure out what Anet is trying to do, you adjust and realize it’s much simpler than trinity.

Any fix is on the players side, to recognize some defined role is not necessary in this game to succeed in dungeons/fractals.

Gee, what a surprise. One of the “petless ranger” dissenters. You know, some things are just intuitive, like the fact that people like contributing something unique in group play rather than just being totally interchangeable with everyone else. Or prefer multi-dimensional tactical combat over one-dimensional DPS fests. Or feeling some degree of attachment to their class based on their ability to customize the way they play it. Or that most players early on joined and left as guilds when they figured out that group content didn’t meet their needs or desires.

I feel no compulsion to try to argue against anyone that disagrees with obvious facets of reality.

Einlanzer.1627:

Gee, what a surprise. One of the “petless ranger” dissenters. You know, some things are just intuitive, like the fact that people like contributing something unique in group play rather than just being totally interchangeable with everyone else. Or prefer multi-dimensional tactical combat over one-dimensional DPS fests. Or feeling some degree of attachment to their class based on their ability to customize the way they play it. Or that most players early on joined and left as guilds when they figured out that group content didn’t meet their needs or desires.

I feel no compulsion to try to argue against anyone that disagrees with obvious facets of reality.

And you, sir, seem like you’re trying to force your assumptions and opinions of the game and its playerbase as reality.

I was one of the people who played the beta and played at launch. I quit because I didn’t find any kind of enjoyable endgame other than grinding for legendaries. I quite liked the dungeons and the non-structured format of the professions. In fact, I would say the lack of defined roles, as well as the concept of dynamic events and living world, are the reason why I even care about the game in the first place. In my opinion, those two things are the game’s most valuable asset.

Unlike you, however, I know that what I like is just my preference and opinion, and nobody should jump to cater to my whim and desires. If you do not like how Guild Wars 2 works, go find another MMO; there are many out there, and the majority cater to what you want. But if you want to accept ArenaNet’s vision and not try to force what you prefer as the best and only way, then I think you’ll enjoy the game a lot more.

Biglulu.3928:

Einlanzer.1627:

Gee, what a surprise. One of the “petless ranger” dissenters. You know, some things are just intuitive, like the fact that people like contributing something unique in group play rather than just being totally interchangeable with everyone else. Or prefer multi-dimensional tactical combat over one-dimensional DPS fests. Or feeling some degree of attachment to their class based on their ability to customize the way they play it. Or that most players early on joined and left as guilds when they figured out that group content didn’t meet their needs or desires.

I feel no compulsion to try to argue against anyone that disagrees with obvious facets of reality.

And you, sir, seem like you’re trying to force your assumptions and opinions of the game and its playerbase as reality.

I was one of the people who played the beta and played at launch. I quit because I didn’t find any kind of enjoyable endgame other than grinding for legendaries. I quite liked the dungeons and the non-structured format of the professions. In fact, I would say the lack of defined roles, as well as the concept of dynamic events and living world, are the reason why I even care about the game in the first place. In my opinion, those two things are the game’s most valuable asset.

Unlike you, however, I know that what I like is just my preference and opinion, and nobody should jump to cater to my whim and desires. If you do not like how Guild Wars 2 works, go find another MMO; there are many out there, and the majority cater to what you want. But if you want to accept ArenaNet’s vision and not try to force what you prefer as the best and only way, then I think you’ll enjoy the game a lot more.

I don’t know why this is so hard to grasp, but it’s not possible to not have roles in an MMO. The problem with “having no roles” is that you end up with only one role – DPS.

That anybody defends this as being better than having actual strategic team play where different characters take on different specializations to contribute meaningfully to the party is beyond absurd and shows an absolute lack of critical analysis. Even Arenanet realizes that this is a problem, and almost everything they’ve implemented since HoT is a soft nudge in this direction. It just needs more polish and refinement.

I don’t need to go find a new MMO. You sound like the kind of absolutist who demands people “leave the country” because they want to express disagreement with a particular policy. I love almost everything about GW2, this is simply one of the very few major quirks of the game that needs to be addressed in some way.

In instanced combat I have seen characters:

providing DPS.
providing defensive buffs (for self and team).
providing offensive buffs (for self and team).
providing target debuffs.
providing heals (for self and team).
providing resurrection (if needed).

If party composition did not matter beyond ability to do personal DPS then there would be no meta based on a party comprised of different classes. Instead you would see exclusively parties comprised of the one class seen as doing the most DPS. This is (generally) not the case. The classes usually least desired are those who only (or almost so) do personal DPS.

I am not surprised that some people, who did not understand what they were seeing, quit the game after launch because of their failure to grasp the reality of the situation. I am a bit more surprised at the thought that some, who might be considered veterans, are still operating under that same degree of failure to grasp the mechanics of group play here.

Einlanzer.1627:

Obtena.7952:

^^ I agree. His whole argument hinges on the fact that you can’t have ‘good, instanced team content’ unless people have roles that are well defined. Obviously, that’s just a personal opinion. Much of the other stuff in there is not factual, like that this lack of roles is the #1 reason the game ‘hemorrhaged’ players. Not even Anet would know why any specific players leave the game, because there is not even a trigger to them leaving … but somehow, THIS guy knows why.

The utter confusion, chaos and disarray is due to people looking for a structure that was never there; OK, probably some level of people wondering who ‘the healer is’, but once you figure out what Anet is trying to do, you adjust and realize it’s much simpler than trinity.

Any fix is on the players side, to recognize some defined role is not necessary in this game to succeed in dungeons/fractals.

I feel no compulsion to try to argue against anyone that disagrees with obvious facets of reality.

There is only one obvious facet of reality … the way the game is designed. You seem to have decided this reality doesn’t work for you; that’s fine, but it doesn’t mean as a game concept, it can’t work and deliver content people want. Seems to me GW2 isn’t doing too bad ditching these nonsensical, limiting ideas of ‘roles’.

You, like others who don’t enjoy this particular reality, have a real choice as a consumer of a service; to not consume this service Anet offers. Lucky for the people that do enjoy the game for it’s refreshing approach, most of those unhappy players have enough sense to realize that after 4 years, Anet isn’t trying to rinse and repeat the tired ideas of decades old MMO’s; They use their choice to stop playing, or at least accept this reality for what it is. What’s stopping you?

The most disturbing thing is … there are roles in the team, you just can’t seem to get over the fact that Anet doesn’t dictate what they are to you in a direct manner. That’s just a player’s failure to grasp what is a more realistic and abstract concept in gaming. It appears you’re one of these people that just likes being told what to do and giving up their choice; perhaps that’s why you haven’t left a game that you view has such a significant deficiency in concept.

Obtena.7952:

The most disturbing thing is … there are roles in the team, you just can’t seem to get over the fact that Anet doesn’t dictate what they are to you in a direct manner. That’s just a player’s failure to grasp what is a more realistic and abstract concept in gaming. It appears you’re one of these people that just likes being told what to do and giving up their choice; perhaps that’s why you haven’t left a game that you view has such a significant deficiency in concept.

The fact that you would tell me this after the arguments you put forth both on this topic and in the ranger subforum actually caused me to laugh out loud at the irony. I don’t know why I cause myself the grief of arguing with obtuse people on the internet.

The truly disturbing thing is you’re talking about the game’s roles while denying the game should have roles, then accusing me of not accepting reality. You clearly aren’t understanding the suggestion I’m making – it’s largely a matter of building on what they have currently, which is what they’re honestly likely to do, probably because of feedback they’ve received from veteran and ex players.

I suppose if selling the game to millions players and having roughly 80% of those players drop out in the first two months after launch is “not doing too bad”, then sure. It’s a good game, and it’s doing well enough. I look past it, because I don’t need it to really enjoy the game. I’m simply arguing why the game-play is not satisfactory to a large number of MMO players. But, I don’t really feel the need to continue this back and forth. Laters.

I don’t understand why you would discuss a topic with people on the forums either … clearly you only want people to agree with your point of view. When they offer their own ideas that aren’t inline with yours, you shut down and dismiss them any way you can.

Anyways, back to the topic … truth is that there are roles, they are just more integrated with game effects instead of class design. That’s probably much too subtle for players so indoctrinated by the trinity approach to gaming. I never denied there was roles; it’s just realized in a different manner than traditional MMO’s.

I don’t see your idea being any more than what other MMO’s do; defining roles by class. You simply added more categories that might be considered minor in other games. Anet threw that out the window over 4 years ago. The game is BUILT on not having that. Our roles are defined by effects and actions.

Ashen.2907:

In instanced combat I have seen characters:

providing DPS.
providing defensive buffs (for self and team).
providing offensive buffs (for self and team).
providing target debuffs.
providing heals (for self and team).
providing resurrection (if needed).

If party composition did not matter beyond ability to do personal DPS then there would be no meta based on a party comprised of different classes. Instead you would see exclusively parties comprised of the one class seen as doing the most DPS. This is (generally) not the case. The classes usually least desired are those who only (or almost so) do personal DPS.

I am not surprised that some people, who did not understand what they were seeing, quit the game after launch because of their failure to grasp the reality of the situation. I am a bit more surprised at the thought that some, who might be considered veterans, are still operating under that same degree of failure to grasp the mechanics of group play here.

The problem is that all of that is intertwined with what is fundamentally a DPS role, because, generally, not only do you not have to sacrifice DPS to provide party class/build-based utility and support, it generally works against the party’s overall effectiveness for you to do so.

In my idea of a well-crafted system, it wouldn’t be required, but you would fairly commonly see players of different classes dumping DPS for other roles within a party based on how it is they want to play their class. There is some framework for this in place already, it’s just not quite where it needs to be, mostly due to lack of skill selection and poor scaling on healing, defense, and boon/condition upkeep relative to straight damage.

As a Herald, for example, I would like to have an option to dump DPS in order to heavily emphasize tanking and boon support to the extent that it benefits the party for me to do so. Unfortunately, it’s generally not as effective as just maximizing my DPS while using the baseline boons offered by the Glint legend. I honestly think this is what Arenanet was going for, and what they need to go for, I just think it needs more tweaking and playing around with. There aren’t enough options yet, and the ones we do have are a bit lackluster.

Einlanzer.1627:

Obtena.7952:

^^ I agree. His whole argument hinges on the fact that you can’t have ‘good, instanced team content’ unless people have roles that are well defined. Obviously, that’s just a personal opinion. Much of the other stuff in there is not factual, like that this lack of roles is the #1 reason the game ‘hemorrhaged’ players. Not even Anet would know why any specific players leave the game, because there is not even a trigger to them leaving … but somehow, THIS guy knows why.

The utter confusion, chaos and disarray is due to people looking for a structure that was never there; OK, probably some level of people wondering who ‘the healer is’, but once you figure out what Anet is trying to do, you adjust and realize it’s much simpler than trinity.

Any fix is on the players side, to recognize some defined role is not necessary in this game to succeed in dungeons/fractals.

Gee, what a surprise. One of the “petless ranger” dissenters. You know, some things are just intuitive, like the fact that people like contributing something unique in group play rather than just being totally interchangeable with everyone else. Or prefer multi-dimensional tactical combat over one-dimensional DPS fests. Or feeling some degree of attachment to their class based on their ability to customize the way they play it. Or that most players early on joined and left as guilds when they figured out that group content didn’t meet their needs or desires.

I feel no compulsion to try to argue against anyone that disagrees with obvious facets of reality.

It is not “an obvious facet of reality” that defined roles makes a game more interesting to everyone. What I objected to primarily was the incorrect assertion that this was a primary cause of attrition after launch.

It’s fine to say you (and many others) enjoy a game with defined roles more than an otherwise identical game without. It’s not true for everyone.

Your suggestion is no different than how SWTOR implements trees for trinity functions. It’s just a thinly veiled trinity with more (but similar) functions (which I suspect you do to try to fool people into thinking it’s a good idea), which brings me back to the fact that this is a whole different way for Anet to implement their teambased content than what exists already. What is the motivation for doing that?

I think you have made a poor assumption; that making GW2 more like everyone else will increase market share and player retention. I think there is much to suggest the opposite; mainly that veteran players are generally accepting or happy with the current approach.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Einlanzer.1627:

Obtena.7952:

^^ I agree. His whole argument hinges on the fact that you can’t have ‘good, instanced team content’ unless people have roles that are well defined. Obviously, that’s just a personal opinion. Much of the other stuff in there is not factual, like that this lack of roles is the #1 reason the game ‘hemorrhaged’ players. Not even Anet would know why any specific players leave the game, because there is not even a trigger to them leaving … but somehow, THIS guy knows why.

The utter confusion, chaos and disarray is due to people looking for a structure that was never there; OK, probably some level of people wondering who ‘the healer is’, but once you figure out what Anet is trying to do, you adjust and realize it’s much simpler than trinity.

Any fix is on the players side, to recognize some defined role is not necessary in this game to succeed in dungeons/fractals.

Gee, what a surprise. One of the “petless ranger” dissenters. You know, some things are just intuitive, like the fact that people like contributing something unique in group play rather than just being totally interchangeable with everyone else. Or prefer multi-dimensional tactical combat over one-dimensional DPS fests. Or feeling some degree of attachment to their class based on their ability to customize the way they play it. Or that most players early on joined and left as guilds when they figured out that group content didn’t meet their needs or desires.

I feel no compulsion to try to argue against anyone that disagrees with obvious facets of reality.

It is not “an obvious facet of reality” that defined roles makes a game more interesting to everyone. What I objected to primarily was the incorrect assertion that this was a primary cause of attrition after launch.

It’s fine to say you (and many others) enjoy a game with defined roles more than an otherwise identical game without. It’s not true for everyone.

Argh! Why don’t you guys understand that you already have “pre-defined roles”!? Apart from choosing a profession, you just only have one instead of many to choose from! The argument against this makes zero sense. It’s hilarious how in human psychology we tribalistically get entrenched in opposing viewpoints when there’s no rational basis for it whatsoever. It’s what our entire American political system represents.

I won’t deny that I’m guilty of it sometimes. I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s happening with me here, though. Maybe I’m just not expressing myself clearly. I’m not saying that I want Arenanet to “dictate” roles to us. I think Arenanet just needs to continue the trend they started last year and open up more build possibilities across classes. It should be a feasible option, even in open group or 5 man content, for some classes to spec totally into a heal/support build, or into a tank/heal, or tank/support, or hybrid DPS, or DPS/control, or support/control, or heal/control.

The current status quo is largely a factor of two issues – a.) lack of skill options, which heavily favors DPS over anything else for most professions, and. b.) differential scaling, where damage scales with stats in a more significant way than any sort of healing, defense, or condi/boon duration.

Both of these things, IMO, need to be further addressed.

Their is a big difference between Anet saying “hey you play this class so you heal” or Anet saying “This class has access to team healing skills”. That’s the difference between roles associated with classes and effects linked to actions.

If completely changes the way encounters are designed. You’re suggestion seems to ignore how significant a paradigm shift this would be, as well as how incompatible such an approach would work for the current game state. That makes it completely unrealistic.

I think if any suggestion like this were to be successful, we would need encounters that could be solved in more than one manner, to make the choice of ‘this’ or ‘that’ for a player on a specific class actually meaningful. Not to say Anet isn’t capable of that … but that’s not how the game currently works. Any suggestion to diversify class roles has to be matched with a thoughtful way to implement that in instanced content.

Not only is that not easy or small, it doesn’t sound like a good return on investment.

Einlanzer.1627:

a.) healing
b.) boon support
c.) tanking
d.) control
e.) aoe
f.) burst power damage
g.) condition damage

a. is now a thing in raids. It can be used anywhere, but most content outside of raids does not demand it.
b. was always and still is a thing in any aspect of the PvE game, at least when people know what they’re doing.
c. is also now a thing for some bosses in raids. It’s not reliable in most other content, nor does that other content often demand it. However, I can pull it off with some regularity.
d. break bars are a much better mechanic to enforce the usefulness of control skills in PvE encounters than the Defiance Bar was. Control is not in a bad place imo.
e. AoE as a distinct role is a stretch in this game. Most professions have AoE options and there is often no trade-off on damage for using AoE over ST attacks.
f. If you mean true “burst” — dealing very high damage in a very short time frame — then it’s always been a part of dungeon play, where it’s usually a team iteration (see speed burns on dungeon bosses). If you just mean direct damage, well that’s alive and well, also.
g. condi is in a much better place since the stack restrictions were changed. However, condi is still backloaded damage (in contrast to direct damage being frontloaded). Mobs with high Toughness/lower health pools helps make condi more desirable. Also, the fact that many weapons have both direct and condi damage — coupled with the Viper stat combo — make hybrid condi/direct a viable thing.

All of which leaves me with questions.

1. Why 5-man content? While small group, instanced PvE is a big part of PvE endgame in other MMO’s, those games do not feature large-scale open world content the way GW2 does. Is there really enough demand for new iterations of such content going forward, especially if a lot of players who wanted it bailed four years ago?
2. Why doesn’t FotM cut it? What could be done with FotM to change that?
3. In old dungeon groups, at least ones who knew what they were doing, we saw boon support, control, AoE and direct damage. Now, in raids, we also see healing, tanking and condi. That’s all 7 of your roles. Since ANet has made some changes to how they design instanced content, what concrete things should they do to further things? By this I don’t mean “design more dungeons,” I mean, “What can they do that they have not already done to enforce given roles?”
4. 4 of your 7 roles were in use in dungeons regularly. Condi was not because of technical limits. Still, posters insisted there was only one role, largely because glass gear was being required by players. How would you propose dealing with the mindsets of players who seem to believe that if your skills/gear are not 100% dedicated to a given role, they aren’t performing that role?
5. In order to enforce the use of roles in instanced PvE content, the content needs to be more structured and (at least potentially) more challenging. If 4 given roles are needed, that’s what will be demanded. The more structured the encounters, the more you’ll see exclusion. How would you propose dealing with accessibility issues? Face it, explorable dungeons were accessible to more players precisely because the encounters could be beaten by players ignoring the optimal roles in use by the most skilled players.
6. Just where do the resources for your proposed 5-man content come from? Does this initiative impact FotM, raids, open world content, PvP or WvW? Needless to say, all of the above demographics would like faster, not slower additions to their preferred play preferences — so who gets thrown under the bus?

I did some raiding over the years over in WoW, and I’ll tell you something: My favorite part of raiding was the point in progression where you don’t have the practice and/or gear to defeat the boss just yet.

In that scenario the group more or less knows what to do and the optimal build to accomplish it, but because certain parts of our collective game aren’t up to the task, we’re forced to improvise and compensate for weaknesses.

By the time you defeat the boss, it’s usually not long before you revert to the “optimal” (read: highest DPS you can get away with!) build and begin farming it. But in that brief period, raiding feels so much more dynamic. I really feel my personal contribution (for good or ill!) in that scenario.

It strikes me that in breaking with the trinity, GW2 has injected a lot of that into the dungeon/fractal game. I’m well aware that practiced groups usually follow the meta and that the PvE meta is “as much DPS as possible while covering any other requirements necessary”. However, I think the fact that nobody is a true “tank” or “healer” creates a scenario where players are forced to improvise in similar ways to what I enjoyed most about group PvE over in WoW. We are using the flexibility of the system to get the job done when the group isn’t optimal.

In any event, having defined roles wasn’t enough to prevent WoW from becoming a straight DPS-fest once you reach raid farm status anyway. Yeah, your healer heals and your tank tanks, but they do it with as much DPS thrown in as possible. Not really any different than it is here, but I think the gameplay in the learning phase can actually be more compelling without the trinity.

AliamRationem.5172:

In any event, having defined roles wasn’t enough to prevent WoW from becoming a straight DPS-fest once you reach raid farm status anyway. Yeah, your healer heals and your tank tanks, but they do it with as much DPS thrown in as possible. Not really any different than it is here, but I think the gameplay in the learning phase can actually be more compelling without the trinity.

That’s an excellent point … tank and the healers only do those things ‘just enough’ … I’ve not played a single trinity-based MMO where tanks/healers pared back their gear from tanking/healing into DPS for optimal performance as they mastered the raids. Indeed, in some instances, tanks and healers became irrelevant once player performance was optimized; that’s a real screw over if you’re a tank/healer looking for groups to raid with.

From what I can tell, GW2 (smartly) skipped that tank/healer step that most people view as necessary for instanced team content. Good move IMO.

Obtena.7952:

AliamRationem.5172:

In any event, having defined roles wasn’t enough to prevent WoW from becoming a straight DPS-fest once you reach raid farm status anyway. Yeah, your healer heals and your tank tanks, but they do it with as much DPS thrown in as possible. Not really any different than it is here, but I think the gameplay in the learning phase can actually be more compelling without the trinity.

That’s an excellent point … tank and the healers only do those things ‘just enough’ … I’ve not played a single trinity-based MMO where tanks/healers pared back their gear from tanking/healing into DPS for optimal performance as they mastered the raids. Indeed, in some instances, tanks and healers became irrelevant once player performance was optimized; that’s a real screw over if you’re a tank/healer looking for groups to raid with.

From what I can tell, GW2 (smartly) skipped that tank/healer step that most people view as necessary for instanced team content. Good move IMO.

Except it has the effect of removing choices from players. I’m all for everyone doing a variety of things. It doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people like to tank, and a lot of people like to heal or support rather than directly fight enemies. And there’s no reason GW2 has to implement a rigid WoW-style trinity to provide those options, and others.

Besides, what you’re saying is factually wrong regarding the most popular MMO in the western hemisphere. WoW always requires tanks and healers unless you’ve outleveled the content, and tanks and healers always spec as tanks and healers for group content.

I can see how you might classify not having the choice to tank/heal is removing choice from people. I see that as freedom as well, because if I bring a tank/heal to a raid, I’m either tanking/healing or I’m told to go take a hike. Even in SWTOR, where swapping roles is just a matter of taking a different tree, that’s still the case. People don’t want your DPS wanna be healer/tank builds for DPS positions. If I had to choose, I would take the ‘restriction’ that GW2 imposes on me over that other kind of discrimination any day.

I’m not actually factually wrong about WoW, because I did say IN SOME INSTANCES. Obviously WoW wouldn’t be one of them in that case.

Anyways, the whole suggestion is only of academic interest anyways; Trinity MMO’s work because content is built for trinity compositions. GW2 small team content isn’t. Suggesting Anet introduce roles AND rework all instanced content for those roles to be relevant is of little benefit and self-serving.

Einlanzer.1627:

Players going into 5-man dungeons, which, IMO is the glue that holds MMOs together, and experiencing tedious disarray due to the lack of any role structure whatsoever, is almost without question the #1 reason why the game started hemorrhaging players right after launch. I had many friends that started playing that all gave me that same feedback when they stopped. In fact, most of them couldn’t even find anything else to really criticize about the game (except maybe the PS, which doesn’t matter nearly as much, and the problems with the karka event).

That does not add up. Literally. If there was a significant portion of the players who want that then there should be absolutely not problem for them to find like minded people to play with.

Arenanet ultimately ended up blaming the dungeon team and firing them (or, at least, the main guy behind the dungeons), when the problem was more on the side of profession design, and remains that way to this day, although elite specs started chipping away at the “DPS only” meta. Needless to say, this reaction was very short-sighted. FotM can never carry all the weight of all five-man content. The game needs new, expansive, thematic dungeons out in the world that don’t have barriers to entry. Arenanet needs to reinvest in dungeons and in tinkering with the professions to provide viability to several different roles, with the ability to both heavily focus on up to three and the ability to hybridize between them. An example would be a Revenant using Glint and Jalis, specializing in tanking and boon support, or an elementalist specializing in healing and control. Here are a few possible options that players could specialize in:

It has been possible to have different roles since the beginning of the game. The effectiveness of some of those roles have been questionable but that is due to the design of the encounters. Dungeon encounters for much of that time. If the dungeon team is not to be blamed for the design of dungeon encounters then who is?

Danikat.8537:

And yet I’ve never experienced “utter confusion, chaos, and disarray due to the lack of any role structure”, not even once.

I’ve experience that but it was primarily caused by two things.

1) general lack of experience by multiple party members
2) lack of communication which typically came down failure to communicate if or which of the various gimmicks people have come up with to deal with the encounter where if it fails even if it is just one person who isn’t in on the plan

Einlanzer.1627:

Argh! Why don’t you guys understand that you already have “pre-defined roles”!? Apart from choosing a profession, you just only have one instead of many to choose from! The argument against this makes zero sense.

Again, that’s not how the game works now. The role I take varies dynamically with the other players in my group and with the particular mechanics, even without changing my profession. That is one of the things that makes GW2 fun for me.

In contrast, in games with multiple pre-defined roles, I’m forced to stick with that role throughout the entire instance. (The closest thing to an exception is in raids, which is closer to what you’re asking for already.)

My argument is that you haven’t proven a case against the current system; you just keep asserting that you prefer a different one.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Einlanzer.1627:

Argh! Why don’t you guys understand that you already have “pre-defined roles”!? Apart from choosing a profession, you just only have one instead of many to choose from! The argument against this makes zero sense.

Again, that’s not how the game works now. The role I take varies dynamically with the other players in my group and with the particular mechanics, even without changing my profession. That is one of the things that makes GW2 fun for me.

In contrast, in games with multiple pre-defined roles, I’m forced to stick with that role throughout the entire instance. (The closest thing to an exception is in raids, which is closer to what you’re asking for already.)

My argument is that you haven’t proven a case against the current system; you just keep asserting that you prefer a different one.

No, what I’m asserting, and perhaps I’m not making it clear enough, is that the current system we have needs further refinement. The game needs to allow for builds that are not oriented around DPS. The beginning of this framework does already exist in game, but it needs to be further developed. We need to have more viable heal options besides the Druid (and arguably the Tempest). Additionally, there should be a framework for having a build that focuses heavily on boons, or control conditions, or threat grabbing, in addition to direct and condition damage. The reason we only have the most rudimentary version of this currently is twofold (I stated above but will repeat here):

a.) we don’t have diverse enough options for weapon skills, with most available weapons for any profession being too pigeon-holing AND too focused around DPS. Weapons that are not focused around DPS (such as Ele Water Staff) tend to give up too much damage for too little utility, meaning they’re mostly just suboptimal. IMO, they should break past the current convention and start adding new weapon skills for existing weapons. Some weapon skills could even be weapon-agnostic. Water ele is a great example of how you could more or less completely eschew damage in favor of providing substantial healing AND either boon support or control effects (or both), leading to a character that contributes to the party in significant ways without directly damaging enemies.

b.) damage (still) scales in a more significant way with stats than anything else. While the game allows you to take other stats like concentration, expertise, healing power, or toughness, the scaling on all of these stats lacks punch compared to the scaling on damage, leading to a situation where it’s rarely recommended and very, very few builds make decent use of it.

You definitely weren’t making your position clear with your initial posts. You were originally saying that the current system was a primary cause of early attrition and that it was broken. In your latest post, you’re arguing that it’s fundamentally ok, but needs improvement. That sounds reasonable to me.

I’m not sure I agree with your contention that boons and control builds don’t exist. Typically, you just need enough boons and control for the particular fight and (usually) one set of builds is better, so people choose that more often than not. However, there are plenty of comps to achieve that same effect, if you don’t care about being more than 70-80% efficient, which is fine for most of the game.

Healing is pretty weak, that’s true. That appears to have been a design decision, so that people work on damage avoidance (which requires skill) rather than damage reversal (i.e. heals), which puts the burden on a healer. I happen to like this, but I’m not against ANet increasing the options for profs that aren’t Druid, Tempest, or Engineer. (There are some mesmer and guardian heal builds, but they aren’t as effective as their mitigation options. There are even variations for necro and warrior, but those are relatively weaker than other builds.)

With regards to your second point, I think even ANet would agree that the current stat allocation and prefix system has tied them up in knots. It would probably take a massive overhaul to rebalance this more than a little. Put another way, you’re not wrong, but I’m not sure that there’s much they can do about it outside of a far, future expac.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You definitely weren’t making your position clear with your initial posts. You were originally saying that the current system was a primary cause of early attrition and that it was broken. In your latest post, you’re arguing that it’s fundamentally ok, but needs improvement. That sounds reasonable to me.

I’m not sure I agree with your contention that boons and control builds don’t exist. Typically, you just need enough boons and control for the particular fight and (usually) one set of builds is better, so people choose that more often than not. However, there are plenty of comps to achieve that same effect, if you don’t care about being more than 70-80% efficient, which is fine for most of the game.

Healing is pretty weak, that’s true. That appears to have been a design decision, so that people work on damage avoidance (which requires skill) rather than damage reversal (i.e. heals), which puts the burden on a healer. I happen to like this, but I’m not against ANet increasing the options for profs that aren’t Druid, Tempest, or Engineer. (There are some mesmer and guardian heal builds, but they aren’t as effective as their mitigation options. There are even variations for necro and warrior, but those are relatively weaker than other builds.)

With regards to your second point, I think even ANet would agree that the current stat allocation and prefix system has tied them up in knots. It would probably take a massive overhaul to rebalance this more than a little. Put another way, you’re not wrong, but I’m not sure that there’s much they can do about it outside of a far, future expac.

Well, keep in mind how far it’s already come since launch. And, I do think the lack of clear roles was an issue for attrition. It’s just how people are used to operating, not even just from similar games like WoW, but even for tabletop games like D&D. I think GW2 can and does now see benefit from at least partially emulating that. I have, however, always been a supporter of getting away from the trinity and, correspondingly, the concept of rigid roles, and I think my original post made that clear. Regardless, there’s no point in straying into semantics regarding a past argument.

I think putting somewhat more burden on a healer is warranted, but I also agree that it shouldn’t be strictly necessary to always run with a dedicated healer (or tank). I get where you’re coming from, but I do think that, generally, there’s too much emphasis placed on individual active defense, and too little on group recovery and support, considering a lot of players like the idea of playing healers, and almost everyone likes the idea of group-level tactics as opposed to strictly individual tactics.

Maybe this is a reason to introduce a Monk-style class at this point, one who has multiple different types of healing/support builds and relatively few damage-oriented ones. Guardian support/healing also needs a buff to be on the same level as Druid and Tempest, frankly.

Re: Monk, I wouldn’t mind a monk-ish elite specialization, so long as it included a good smite option. I was never really fond of the pressure put on a monk in GW1, so wouldn’t want to see that here. I also remember the days of being stuck “waiting for a monk” before progressing, so wouldn’t want to see that here. Different game, I know, but the memories remain.

OP, I think perhaps your focus is just misplaced. Apparently, Dungeons have no future, and for what we have, a DPS focus works, so why change anything? “Fractals are the new Dungeons” and those are likewise being completed with current profession offerings. So again, why change it?

If you brought this topic up pertaining to Raids and what you hope to see in future Raids and related elite specs, then perhaps it would be more pertinent?

Replacing a trinity with a different trinity would solve none of hte problems for me. I don’t get why people need roles. I think a system without roles is much better.

I don’t get the kind of confusion in dungeons because I play with my guild and we’re usually on voice. Which means that we all have all the roles and we switch them around as needed. In some cases that means one person rezzing while others distract the boss.

If the price of pugging is having to have defined roles, I’d rather they remove pugging.

Einlanzer.1627:

I think putting somewhat more burden on a healer is warranted, but I also agree that it shouldn’t be strictly necessary to always run with a dedicated healer (or tank). I get where you’re coming from, but I do think that, generally, there’s too much emphasis placed on individual active defense, and too little on group recovery and support, considering a lot of players like the idea of playing healers, and almost everyone likes the idea of group-level tactics as opposed to strictly individual tactics.

Just a comment on this part (bolded):

What if more classes had abilities, utils, heals etc that also gave something to others ? Example Shouts usually does this. I’ve been playing a shout guardian for many years, and I’ve just automatically learned to position myself before using my utils so others can benefit from them.

Just by making more heal/util/elite’s work in this way would alter and change this. I also remember Revenant having a trait that gives Protection to nearby allies when you use a heal skill etc. If more classes had skills that did this, then more classes could play more group oriented, help each others and with good play strengthen the group play. Without really having to change too much about the current game.

The downside, WvW would be even more Fubar, as stacking and numbers would be even more powerful. In general it would further strengthen the current “win by stacking numbers!” zerging tactic we see through the game. I’m no expert on Dungeons, but I’d expect this would further encourage the stack on this spot and spam all skills that I’ve seen a few times.

I fundamentally disagree with this:

Einlanzer.1627:

…5-man dungeons, which, IMO is the glue that holds MMOs together

Dungeons are an add-on. Many players will not play them.

Einlanzer.1627:

Argh! Why don’t you guys understand that you already have “pre-defined roles”!?

I do? What is it?