Guild Wars 2

The next Everquest game is on the horizon and I for one will be keeping a key eye on it: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/02/first-look-everquest-next

I played EQ2 from launch until the 3rd expansion then due to not having a gaming PC I went off the grid. It was a great game, but looking back now I can’t help but feel I won’t be able to play a new MMO unless they take heed from GW2. It’s the unique mechanics of this game that do it, specifically:

The private instanced loot system vs Need/Greed
In EQ2 it was /roll highest number gets the loot on a need/want/greed system. Couldn’t go back to that although it made rare drops even rarer but at the same time without ridiculously high RNG.

XP for everything vs grind for gameplay
The fact you can just pick up and play gw2 and still make progress is great. So many times in Eq2 I’d run a quest line and get nowhere for a few hours playtime.

Dynamic quests / static NPCs and quest logs
I don’t want to have to run to and from NPCs to do quests, being able to dip in and out of events means I can enjoy content without the camping/delivery boy mechanics that are just a timesink.

Transmuting vs chase the stats
I love the fact that you can create a new character and instantly go shopping for level 80 gear for it to wear (admittedly via a gemstone gateway for trans stones). It means that the defining objective for your character is no longer wear the best stats to make a great character. Instead it’s wear what you want and just enjoy it. Also there’s no /inspect which means you can actually get away with wearing anything.

If new MMOs don’t adopt these revelations I really will struggle to tear myself away from the brilliantly thought through game. Yes it has its foibles but its leading the genre by experimenting. risk in new features is the key for growth. Keep it up ANet. you won’t be losing my gem purchases to subscription MMOs like EQ for a while if you carry on at the current pace.

What do you reckon, have you been spoilt by GW2? Could you go back to last gen MMO mechanics like camping/loot sharing/quests?

I tried playing other games. Personalized looting, among other things, stopped me from going anywhere.

I’ve said it before- new MMOs will borrow GW2’s ideas and polish them and they will be far more successful. From an innovative standpoint Arena.NET did a fantastic job, but they never improved upon their systems (no trinity, rezzing, underwhelming loot, zerging, world bosses etc) and as a result they still suck. Hopefully we see good competition in the future like EQ: Next so Arena.NET can actually do some major updates.

Going back to older MMOs after playing GW2 is a no-no. Going forward with new titles – more than likely for most players, unless serious work is done here. Here’s hoping your thread doesn’t get closed because some moderator didn’t bother to read past the title.

Yeah was very mindful of keeping this post more relevant to GW2 than a third party game. I agree insignia, competitors will take leaves from ANets book but that’s what makes healthy industries – healthy competiton. Even if better games do come out I like to think it will be because of ANets hard work

Edited title to make it a bit more mod-friendly

Actually, most games aren’t made with the capacity of copying Guild War 2’s gameplay.

Neverwinter (F2P by PWI) tried to copy it, they had a roll system where each class had a unique roll to their character, but it was just a roll (mages would “teleport”, thievs would roll, etc, etc, etc). What most games don’t/won’t have are fluid combat systems.

Even looking at Wildstar, the “upcoming behemoth”, I’m skeptical. It looks like SMITE the MMO.

GW2 will have time to add onto their ideas whereas other games will have to recreate and perfect them. Remember that GW2 hasn’t been out for a year yet. Most games [should] take at least 2 years to develop (the base game, that is, including the engine). To add what GW2 has isn’t that simple.

As for the Trinity,Rezzing,Looting,Zerging… those are mostly opinions/mob mentality.

Not having a trinity is one of the best things to happen to GW2, imo. If GW2 had specific classes, it’d be a pain to get into dungeons. The open world PvE would also be a pain and so would Personal Storyline. You’d have people begging for tanks/dps/healers just to do their storyline.

The res system is fine, I think. It allows players to choose between putting themselves in danger to save others or to let them fall. It’s somewhat similar to ressing (which typically has a long cast time that forces you to stand still), so I don’t see how this is a problem.

Underwhelming loot is being fixed. I feel like you haven’t read the recent news.

Insignya.8625:

I’ve said it before- new MMOs will borrow GW2’s ideas and polish them and they will be far more successful. From an innovative standpoint Arena.NET did a fantastic job, but they never improved upon their systems (no trinity, rezzing, underwhelming loot, zerging, world bosses etc) and as a result they still suck. Hopefully we see good competition in the future like EQ: Next so Arena.NET can actually do some major updates.

Going back to older MMOs after playing GW2 is a no-no. Going forward with new titles – more than likely for most players, unless serious work is done here. Here’s hoping your thread doesn’t get closed because some moderator didn’t bother to read past the title.

Gw2 isn’t supposed to be your WoW Style Game with new mechanics. It wasn’t supposed to be the game with a trinity, super great loot for everything and all that. It’s not a game for hardcore gamers or players who desperately need rewards to feel motivated. This game is not the right one for you and it never will, you need to accept that. For you these things would be improvements, for me it would be deteriorations.
I hope you will have fun with the upcoming MMOs, they’ll probably suit you better, but stop trying to change this game into something it shouldn’t be.

@Justdeifyme, oh golly, another person telling me I want a WoW clone. You people are like the plague. Did I SAY I WANT THOSE THINGS BACK?! I said the systems GW2 has are unfinished and don’t work – which is a FACT because I’ve played GW2 for 10 months and you have to be the stupidest person on the planet to claim that any of the things I’ve mentioned above are well-executed.

If you people spent half the time you do telling others they should move to other games to actually propose healthy changes, these forums wouldn’t be such a massive trollfest.

Yesterday I took a peak in SWGemu….and tried to dodge roll during the fight.

/doh

I read the article and I must say it looks interesting. It did leave a few questions unanswered tho such as cost. Will it be a subs game for example? They didn’t cover the question on death either like the writer mentioned. Also with the world be destroyable and the part about players aiding the enemy mobs etc, I could see a lot of space for griefers to do their work here.

Having said all that tho it does look interesting I might have to keep an eye on it.

Of course Gw2 needs to improve on many things, but is adding the Trinity an improvement? Hell no. Improving the actuall class system is better than just adding a darn trinity that I’m so sick of. I play gw2 because it has no Trinity and I don’t need to do exactly THAT in Dungeons to be good. If many people are telling you you want a WoW Clone, maybe it’s true? Or you just express your thoughts wrong. No Trinity and the resurrecting mechanic are 2 reasons I play this game, for you those are 2 reasons to rant about, it’s your opinion, not a thing that needs to be changed entirely.

Go back to last gen mmo? Sure, if its well written and plays out good. That means smooth animations, skills working properly, good controlls and a lot of options and easy to use tools like Gw2LFG site… why it is not in the game? :O

Overall, I would fall back to old genre mmo if it proves to be exciting. At the moment I had to pick 1 Raid 1 Daily hub in WoW vs Gw2 Skypirates and Cutthroat Politics and soon to be Queens J. Since I dont care about dailies in WoW nor I raid because they implemented LFR (aka raid for monkies) I went though content within days of release
So this was example how good features like Living World actually made me want to play Gw2 again after 5 month break I may add. If EQ has something even better than yeah, I dont see why shouldnt I try that out.

Well good news then, cassius.
Everquest Next is very much borrowing from what GW1 and GW2 do, on top of doing their own thing.
Multi-classing with over 40 classes to mix n’ match.
8 skill hotbar (4 weapon specific skills/4 class based skills), & weapon swap are what immediately screamed ‘GW’ to me.

As for your points on xp and dynamic events.
EQN doesn’t use xp. They have a new type of progression system.
And since it utilizes procedural generation mechanics, world building/destroying systems, and emergent AI for it’s non player population, nothing happening in the world will be predictable or repeatable.

@Justdeifyme Well obviously if random people on the Internet are telling you you’re a pedophile, it must be true, right? You deserve every bit of hateful remarks I can make just because you managed to twist my words into sheer stupidity.

No trinity doesn’t work in this game because there’s no support, everything is DPS which means that the higher the damage of a class, the more important that class is to PvE. Which, in turn, makes other classes obsolete.

No trinity doesn’t work in sPvP because there’s no synergy between classes. No synergy = no teamwork = no competitive play.

Resurrecting doesn’t work because the game doesn’t offer enough punishing mechanics to warrant Downed State. Therefore you either limit the amount of people actively able to resurrect a person at any given time to one, or you drastically reduce the amount of health a person has while in Downed State. Dying in GW2 results in you being transformed into a static turret.

If I wanted a WoW clone I’d have written “I want a WoW clone”. I want the mechanics above FIXED. I don’t care that you follow the whiteknight clan where you’re somehow entitled to rephrase every bit of criticism to “this game has no gear grind and trinity it sucks”.

Insignya.8625:

I’ve said it before- new MMOs will borrow GW2’s ideas and polish them and they will be far more successful.

Seems like that’s the plans for EverQuest Next.

Really, permanent dynamic events, combat system similar to GW2’s, GW1’s cross-classing and skill hunting, and a focus on fun, exploration and horizontal progression over vertical.

EverQuest Next seems to take Anet’s own manifesto one step or two further. Now, if the devs can succeed at doing so or not, it’s an entirely different question.

I feel like you play a warrior to even suggest that there is no support.

There is plenty of support. Have you done high level fractals? Support is what keeps the party alive. The “GW2 trinity” is Support/Damage/Control, of which you can HAVE MULTIPLES.

In fact, the best way of utilizing this trinity is to be 2 of the 3 prongs. This means being Support + Damage or Support + Control is better than being Support alone.

Being Damage + Support is better than being Damage alone.

If you fail to realize that, you need to get your head out of your WvW zerg and play the game.

I think that because MMOs have made everything too easy and just resorted to a combination of either throwing stuff at players or silly grind or time gated progression. GW2 has only made this worse.

The instant gratification has gone too far and made people lazy. I find it interesting how people think they know what’s going on by having played one or two MMOs. Aion has a system where you can combine items taking the stats from one and the look from the other…sound familiar? Aion also had an armour set that was the ultimate thing but one of the armour pieces was completely dependent on RNG…legendary weapon anyone?

Sure GW2 brought in dynamic events and hearts. Basically a new way of doing the same old stuff. Why do people think something is new when all they did is repackage it. Area quests are not new and that’s what these are. In the end you are still collecting x items, killing x mobs and defending locations or travelling npc’s.

Contemporary items in a fantasy game? Been done. Nothing new.

Really all GW2 has done is take things from other games and repackage them in a way that people are not used to. It’s fair enough and every other game does this at least to some extent, but let’s not overvalue this so called “innovation”.

Dynamic events are kinda cool, but they are repetitive and people are often trying to find out when and where events are. This is not a good thing in my view.

Also pve content is generally way to easy and the toughest challenge is fighting boredom.

But at least there’s lots of events and silly shiny crap to keep people “excited”. Once you dispel the shiny though, it leaves me with a game that is just as repetitive as any other game and often more. Why do you think they are doing all they can to keep you distracted?

So no, aside from a couple of good ideas on how to deal with quests and quest logs, this game has actually only added old stuff and made them worse in various ways.
I definitely don’t see GW2 as a template for the future.

Look at some other items:
Guilds
sPvP
Dungeons
Leveling to a sensekitten
Reward system

These are some of the core elements of this game and they are not well done at all. Oh it’s so great that everybody gets loot….what loot? A couple of blues and some gold from a boss?

No, the OP is entitled to his opinion but I see GW2 as a diversion, quirky deviation not an evolution.

Yes, GW2 was meant to have a control/ support/ damage trinity. No, it’s not very successful at doing that. Control? What control? Bosses in this game are literally immune to control. Support? What support? In extreme situations, it might be needed from one or another profession, but most of the time it’s optional, which means it only serves to slowdown the gameplay for no real gain. GW2’s endgame is a Berzerker DPS rush. Even when you take a single support build (almost always a guardian) in harder content, it’s mostly about zerging with Zerker gear. This is GW2.

@Esplen Apologies, I must not have been paying attention to the game. I didn’t realize there was support/damage/control in a game where bosses are CC-immune. Must have been doing something wrong in 40+ Fractals : – )

I wish I knew the intricacies of GW2’s combat as well as you. I mean I’ve farmed Fractals for 4 months but if a random troll is telling me there’s actual support in this game then heck, how can I argue.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Insignya.8625:

I’ve said it before- new MMOs will borrow GW2’s ideas and polish them and they will be far more successful.

Seems like that’s the plans for EverQuest Next.

Really, permanent dynamic events, combat system similar to GW2’s, GW1’s cross-classing and skill hunting, and a focus on fun, exploration and horizontal progression over vertical.

EverQuest Next seems to take Anet’s own manifesto one step or two further. Now, if the devs can succeed at doing so or not, it’s an entirely different question.

yes exactly. I just found some info about EQN and it really looks like the best aspects of guild wars crossed with minecraft*. in similar news, there is a dark age of camelot game coming out that is RvR with similar minecraft-esque environments and buildings. the most interesting thing to me about EQN is i heard there weren’t going to be any levels, and something you craft at level 1 will still be useful later. gear doesn’t give you any “stats” that improve the power of your character. or at least that’s what it seems like. very very horizontal progression with 40 “classes” (whatever they mean by that) and you can select any 4 skills from the classes you’ve learned along with 4 skills from your weapon. I’m keeping my eye on it.

*well I don’t think you can build things like minecraft, but you can destroy nearly anything and dig down into a randomly generated underground layer that goes all the way across the world

Insignya.8625:

No trinity doesn’t work in this game because there’s no support, everything is DPS which means that the higher the damage of a class, the more important that class is to PvE. Which, in turn, makes other classes obsolete.

That’s one of the Issues, you’re right, But it shouldn’t be solved with a classic trinity which defines your playstyle completly. There have been suggestions to make classes stronger for certain thinks like Damage-Support, Damage-Control and Damage-Damage. To get to that point you don’t nerf the ability to deal damage, but buff the ability to heal, provide Condition cleanses and drasticially increasing the usefulness of CC, which is useless at the moment because most Bosses have “Defiant”.

Insignya.8625:

No trinity doesn’t work in sPvP because there’s no synergy between classes. No synergy = no teamwork = no competitive play.

So you want sPvP to be some sort of Dungeon against other players where one tanks all the damage while others heal him and others do damage? That’d be boring to play and to watch, and Gw2 tries to get eSport attention. With the current system it would be possible, because it’s fun to watch and to play, it just needs more balance between the classes. PvP is about smashing others together, splitting and attacking from different angles, that is teamplay in a PvP Game.

Insignya.8625:

Resurrecting doesn’t work because the game doesn’t offer enough punishing mechanics to warrant Downed State. Therefore you either limit the amount of people actively able to resurrect a person at any given time to one, or you drastically reduce the amount of health a person has while in Downed State. Dying in GW2 results in you being transformed into a static turret.

The Downed state is a good mechanic for solo playing, because if you die and your enemy is low, you can kill him and get up again. It’s against frustration. In Dungeons it helps getting players back up if they did a mistake, but depending on the dungeon path it takes a big risk to revive a downed player and that balances it out. In PvP it’s a annoying if you kill somebody and a teammate runs by and just revives him while you can’t do anything against it because they heal faster than you can do damage, they should nerf that.

Justdeifyme.9387:

Insignya.8625:

No trinity doesn’t work in sPvP because there’s no synergy between classes. No synergy = no teamwork = no competitive play.

So you want sPvP to be some sort of Dungeon against other players where one tanks all the damage while others heal him and others do damage? That’d be boring to play and to watch, and Gw2 tries to get eSport attention. With the current system it would be possible, because it’s fun to watch and to play, it just needs more balance between the classes. PvP is about smashing others together, splitting and attacking from different angles, that is teamplay in a PvP Game.

oh man that was painful to read
gw1 combat was nothing at all like that
their trinity was like: spike-dps/pressure-dps, disable/interrupt, protect/heal
nowhere in there was there ever anything like a “tank”, and there was plenty of splitting in gvg
my god i miss that game q_q

@Justdeifyme Do you… even know… what synergy means?! Initiating, CC-ing, peeling for the DPS-er, two skills that benefit each other and so on? Are we back on the trinity train? Do you know how many people want to see 2 teams of 5 whacking each other without purpose on the professional scene? Without class counter-picking, team comps and actual theorycrafting? ZERO?!

These discussions, man, they make me sad on a sunny afternoon.

milo.6942:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Insignya.8625:

No trinity doesn’t work in sPvP because there’s no synergy between classes. No synergy = no teamwork = no competitive play.

So you want sPvP to be some sort of Dungeon against other players where one tanks all the damage while others heal him and others do damage? That’d be boring to play and to watch, and Gw2 tries to get eSport attention. With the current system it would be possible, because it’s fun to watch and to play, it just needs more balance between the classes. PvP is about smashing others together, splitting and attacking from different angles, that is teamplay in a PvP Game.

oh man that was painful to read
gw1 combat was nothing at all like that
their trinity was like: spike-dps/pressure-dps, disable/interrupt, protect/heal
nowhere in there was there ever anything like a “tank”, and there was plenty of splitting in gvg
my god i miss that game q_q

Well, I don’t entirely agree. There was such a thing as a terratank for example. I remember going into DOA for example with a tank going in first with all kinds of protective enchantments etc….definitely a tank.

I do agree it wasn’t part of a normal trinity as in other MMOs but to say there was never anything like a tank anywhere in GW1 is also not true.

Gehenna.3625:

milo.6942:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Insignya.8625:

No trinity doesn’t work in sPvP because there’s no synergy between classes. No synergy = no teamwork = no competitive play.

So you want sPvP to be some sort of Dungeon against other players where one tanks all the damage while others heal him and others do damage? That’d be boring to play and to watch, and Gw2 tries to get eSport attention. With the current system it would be possible, because it’s fun to watch and to play, it just needs more balance between the classes. PvP is about smashing others together, splitting and attacking from different angles, that is teamplay in a PvP Game.

oh man that was painful to read
gw1 combat was nothing at all like that
their trinity was like: spike-dps/pressure-dps, disable/interrupt, protect/heal
nowhere in there was there ever anything like a “tank”, and there was plenty of splitting in gvg
my god i miss that game q_q

Well, I don’t entirely agree. There was such a thing as a terratank for example. I remember going into DOA for example with a tank going in first with all kinds of protective enchantments etc….definitely a tank.

I do agree it wasn’t part of a normal trinity as in other MMOs but to say there was never anything like a tank anywhere in GW1 is also not true.

i was talking pvp
there were often tanks in pve

The closest thing to a tank was the front-line.
The front-line’s purpose was not tanking.
XD

Gehenna.3625:

I think that because MMOs have made everything too easy and just resorted to a combination of either throwing stuff at players or silly grind or time gated progression. GW2 has only made this worse.

The instant gratification has gone too far and made people lazy. I find it interesting how people think they know what’s going on by having played one or two MMOs. Aion has a system where you can combine items taking the stats from one and the look from the other…sound familiar? Aion also had an armour set that was the ultimate thing but one of the armour pieces was completely dependent on RNG…legendary weapon anyone?

Sure GW2 brought in dynamic events and hearts. Basically a new way of doing the same old stuff. Why do people think something is new when all they did is repackage it. Area quests are not new and that’s what these are. In the end you are still collecting x items, killing x mobs and defending locations or travelling npc’s.

Contemporary items in a fantasy game? Been done. Nothing new.

Really all GW2 has done is take things from other games and repackage them in a way that people are not used to. It’s fair enough and every other game does this at least to some extent, but let’s not overvalue this so called “innovation”.

Dynamic events are kinda cool, but they are repetitive and people are often trying to find out when and where events are. This is not a good thing in my view.

Also pve content is generally way to easy and the toughest challenge is fighting boredom.

But at least there’s lots of events and silly shiny crap to keep people “excited”. Once you dispel the shiny though, it leaves me with a game that is just as repetitive as any other game and often more. Why do you think they are doing all they can to keep you distracted?

So no, aside from a couple of good ideas on how to deal with quests and quest logs, this game has actually only added old stuff and made them worse in various ways.
I definitely don’t see GW2 as a template for the future.

Look at some other items:
Guilds
sPvP
Dungeons
Leveling to a sensekitten
Reward system

These are some of the core elements of this game and they are not well done at all. Oh it’s so great that everybody gets loot….what loot? A couple of blues and some gold from a boss?

No, the OP is entitled to his opinion but I see GW2 as a diversion, quirky deviation not an evolution.

I have to Agree with you with everything you stated, as I’m also a Realist (I’m no longer in Delusion) ..

One more item i would like to add to your lists of items..

Balancing Classes

Currently,

Thief is the only class “Balance/Perfect” class at the moment according to Arena net.

(just an add-on)

Esplen.3940:

Underwhelming loot is being fixed. I feel like you haven’t read the recent news.

No you’re right I didn’t mention the champion patch but I have read it. I didn’t want to comment on it until I’d seen it in action and understood the mechanics of it 100% more than the drip fed information we’ve been given.

Those couple of posts (redfeather and milo) mentioning the additional features of EQ:N would you mind quoting some sources? I’d like to see more information regarding that games standard mechanics. Sorry cant quote you multitasking is a pain on iPad.

Lastly please refrain from arguing I’m tires of these excuses for a discussion in these forums. Certain posts (since edited by their posters regarding a hideous topic) were completely unnecessary for the original topic.

Insignya.8625:

No trinity doesn’t work in this game because there’s no support, everything is DPS which means that the higher the damage of a class, the more important that class is to PvE. Which, in turn, makes other classes obsolete.

No trinity doesn’t work in sPvP because there’s no synergy between classes. No synergy = no teamwork = no competitive play.

At the same time, the Trinity (1 Tank, 1 Healer, 3 DPS) has its flaws as well:

1) It lacks depth: Players aren’t given a choice how to tackle the content. You HAVE to take a Tank, Healer and 3 DPS. No choice = no depth. Not only that, when it comes to encounter mechanics, you’re restricted in what mechanics you can implement that require the Trinity. Tanks tend to be limited to “Face the boss away” or, if there are two tanks “Have a mechanic that requires tanks to swap at X stacks” or “Tank keeps the boss, other Tank gets the Adds”. DPS tends to be Target Priority and Healer heals. Mechanics such as Sindragosa’s trapping people in crystals isn’t limited to the Trinity (and could easily be implemented into GW2).

2) It isn’t truly teamwork: Subjective, but I don’t view having hard roles as true teamwork. If the Tank goes down, that’s it. There’s no ability for a DPS to stall for a bit while some players while some other players get the Tank back up (short of an in-battle res).

3) It’s still all essentially a DPS race: Tank needs to get as much Aggro as possible, Healers need to out-heal the damage being received (with the occasional condition removal), DPS…speaks for itself. They’re all just DPS races with different names.

Note: These comments are strictly about the Trinity; not encounter mechanics, where most of the depth and execution comes from

That lack of synergy is also present in the majority of MMO’s. Unless you craft abilities that combine for extra damage / additional effects, and spread them across different classes, or you give classes unique conditions, with other classes that can make use of them conditions, you aren’t going to get true synergy. The closest we have in GW2 is the Combo system.

Finally, there is nothing wrong with the soft-role system GW2 has. It’s not that the combat system lacks depth (although Defiant is flawed; I personally think it should a) be a timer, not a stack or b) be a countdown, where id doesn’t trigger if you interrupt an attack).

It’s that individual encounter mechanics generally don’t require players to make use of the depth.

For example, The Lovers in AC Story.

If them boulders weren’t there, players would need to have soft roles:

• To keep them apart
• To clear conditions and mitigate damage
• To wipe out adds

Players can look at the tools they have in order to do this, and choose how to do it. Maybe that Guardian will take a Hammer and trap him, or that Thief will use Scorpion Wire to pull him even further away, while that Necro puts down the convert Conditions to Boons AoE (can’t think of the name) to deal with all the conditions.

TL:DR – The Trinity isn’t what we need. Encounter mechanics that bring out what is already in place is.

In regards to trinity I feel that this game does have a very heavy sense of the player still being solo even in groups and events. Having no defined tank/dps/heal role sometimes makes it feel the only effect you have in a group is making sure you yourself don’t wipe, apart from in a few of the higher dungeons/fractals where teamwork is promoted a bit more.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/02/soe-live-2013-everquest-next-explained/

There are also no levels or in this game, although your character does still progress.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/everquest-next-is-real-and-its-amazing

This is all accomplished with voxels – the fundamental building block of EverQuest Next – which allow for more convincing destruction.

http://www.eqnexus.com/2013/08/eqnexus-everquest-next-debut-wrapup/

http://www.eqnexus.com/2013/08/soe-live-day-2-everquest-next-nightly-recap/

Player stats are called attributes. Equipment will not provide attributes. Additional attributes will be extremely rare and will require tremendous effort to modify.

TheDaiBish.9735:

1) It lacks depth: Players aren’t given a choice how to tackle the content. You HAVE to take a Tank, Healer and 3 DPS. No choice = no depth. Not only that, when it comes to encounter mechanics, you’re restricted in what mechanics you can implement that require the Trinity. Tanks tend to be limited to “Face the boss away” or, if there are two tanks “Have a mechanic that requires tanks to swap at X stacks” or “Tank keeps the boss, other Tank gets the Adds”. DPS tends to be Target Priority and Healer heals. Mechanics such as Sindragosa’s trapping people in crystals isn’t limited to the Trinity (and could easily be implemented into GW2).

This is in fact what makes it team work. Everybody has to play their part or the team fails. It depends on the game and difficulty level however how far that goes. SWTOR is a current game with a trinity system. In story mode you’ll find operations (raids) rather more forgiving and in hard mode, then yes, you have to learn to dance the dance. But PvE is about beating an AI, all PvE is like that to some extent, whether you realise it or not. The big boss fights are just less forgiving in making mistakes.

TheDaiBish.9735:

2) It isn’t truly teamwork: Subjective, but I don’t view having hard roles as true teamwork. If the Tank goes down, that’s it. There’s no ability for a DPS to stall for a bit while some players while some other players get the Tank back up (short of an in-battle res).

It is subjective indeed. To me teamwork means that everybody’s role matters and that if someone fails the team fails. It’s about making sure everybody learns and plays their part. I very much find that teamwork.

TheDaiBish.9735:

3) It’s still all essentially a DPS race: Tank needs to get as much Aggro as possible, Healers need to out-heal the damage being received (with the occasional condition removal), DPS…speaks for itself. They’re all just DPS races with different names.

That is an oversimplification. I get the feeling you speak about a specific game. In SWTOR for example (I use that game since I play it), DPS is an issue because of enrage timers. However tanking is not just building aggro and healing isn’t just about outhealing damage. So really, I just want to tell you that not all trinity games are the same.

All systems have pro’s and cons…In GW2 the lack of distinct roles makes classes jut fluff and not fucntional. In my view GW2 only has 2 roles…dps and support but all classes can do both. The choice is just to which extent you want to fill each role with your class. Why do I see that as a bad thing? Well, as much as it allows for anybody to do anything, there’s nothing special about your character because whatever it is you can do with your class someone else can do it too. Some people don’t have a problem with that but I like there to be a point to a class more than just a bit of background and certain look.

Again, GW2 does have some cool things in it. I certainly won’t say it’s all bad, but to see it as a template for next gen MMOs is overestimating this game…at least in my view

milo.6942:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/02/soe-live-2013-everquest-next-explained/

There are also no levels or in this game, although your character does still progress.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/everquest-next-is-real-and-its-amazing

This is all accomplished with voxels – the fundamental building block of EverQuest Next – which allow for more convincing destruction.

http://www.eqnexus.com/2013/08/eqnexus-everquest-next-debut-wrapup/

http://www.eqnexus.com/2013/08/soe-live-day-2-everquest-next-nightly-recap/

Player stats are called attributes. Equipment will not provide attributes. Additional attributes will be extremely rare and will require tremendous effort to modify.

lovely thanks milo ill have a read now

in other news gw2 is a great game and the mods are really nice folks

You don’t need THE holy trinity (tank, dps, heal), but you certainly need roles to have better teamplay. Or else, as Cassius mentioned, group events feel like solo playing in parallel with other players, not alongside them. Team synergy, covering the weaknesses of each partner, and creating situations for our partners to shine leads to fun team playing, and all this is lacking when building is very homogenized for the sake of solo content.

There are many roles that are not necessarily tank or heal. We have GW1’s prots, which is pretty much involves a frail caster buffing other allies into temporary tanks. We have offensive party support. We have control, which is big in GW1, and was supposed to be big in GW2, and control can range from disable/ interruption, to punishment, to movement advantage (and party support can also buff movement advantage). We can have bunkers, like in pvp, which are a mixture of solo tanks and self-healers, which I personally don’t enjoy; and we can have roamers, with several purposes that range from stealth-spy, to flexible ally support in divided parties, to item carriers.

GW2’s combat makes almost no use of this. PvP has extreme burst, roamers (who usually are burst builds) and extreme bunkering. PvE is driven by DPS Zerker builds – which Warriors are generally the best at – with the occasional Mesmer (which is still zerker, usually) and the occasional Guardian in the most extreme situations. This makes GW2’s teamplay combat very shallow, and the professions terribly balanced for pve.

A mmo does not needs the classic trinity, but the classic trinity, which consists of three roles, would be much better than the current “One Role to Rule Them All” pve metagame. At least in the classic trinity, mindless dps builds are still being supported by tanking and healing.

Out of the few mmos I have played, GW1 did it the best. It didn’t have the classic tank (exceptions aside), it offered plenty of new roles that GW2 tried to and failed at, and for that GW1 had brilliant team synergy depth.

When it comes to balancing between solo play versus group play, GW2 generalizes all builds to solo playing. That’s why dodging and self-defense skills are king, and as an unfortunate consequence, the difference between DPS roles and other roles is the time you take to beat content, in favor of DPS.

In this regard, FFXIV:ARR did it best. It allows you to choose between classes and jobs, classes being generalized professions with plenty of cross-classing synergy for homogenized build for solo play, and jobs being specialized versions of the classes for the purpose of more efficient group play.

Ironically, if GW2 used GW1’s skill system, it would be a direct improvement. Solo builds could pick a general range of skills for solo playing, while group content would require specialized builds. So, for example, your solo elementalist could pick some water healing and mix it with fire bursting for solo play, but in dungeon content, they could go for a specialized fire/ air burst build, or a specialized water/ earth defensive or support build, etc. Just an example.

Ok now I’m even more intrigued. I was thinking about the terrain system and wondered how long it would take for players to completely destroy the world!!! Of course they’ve thought if that. They should definitely have a server at beta where they turn off regeneration.

Animation in the videos looks amazing, very smooth.

Oh and mods, please don’t go into my row in the player database and set the super secret loot chance modifier field to 0.1% because I bought attention to this game:)

cassius.5809:

Ok now I’m even more intrigued. I was thinking about the terrain system and wondered how long it would take for players to completely destroy the world!!! Of course they’ve thought if that. They should definitely have a server at beta where they turn off regeneration.

Animation in the videos looks amazing, very smooth.

Oh and mods, please don’t go into my row in the player database and set the super secret loot chance modifier field to 0.1% because I bought attention to this game:)

Well if you can destroy stuff I would imagine you can build stuff and plants will grow again etc. So it does sound interesting.

I think what they are doing with skills is an improvement on a mix of GW1 and GW2 elements btw. Also I seem to remember that you don’t actually gain levels. That’s something that would’ve worked better in GW2.

I know a lot of people were asking for more levels in GW1 but that’s the funny thing: GW2 is not GW1 at all. so where more levels would’ve been interesting for a game like GW1, it doesn’t actually work well in GW2.

my thought on these links .. everquest next feels too cartoony for me..
the, breaking environment thing has been implemented in fighting games.. but when you get used to it, its nothing special.. it would be more annoying than not in the long run..
the landscape is nothing special.. standard by the book fantasy stuff.!
the monster looks bland…. a.k.a boring!
the only thing that interest me is the, multi class and rich skill choices.! (which sadly the core thing that i think gw2 is lacking)
yea yea yea.. Im a fanboy..

I’ve not played an MMO with no levels I’m quite wary of having no underlying goal. My goal is experiencing the journey not the destination? Crazy talk.

Gehenna.3625:

I think what they are doing with skills is an improvement on a mix of GW1 and GW2 elements btw. Also I seem to remember that you don’t actually gain levels. That’s something that would’ve worked better in GW2.

So far from what is known:

EQN’s skill set is restricted to 8, like GW1’s. It has an energy system where activating costly skills prevents you from doing some rotations unless you have the proper gear for that, like in GW1. We know there’s cross-classing, like in GW1. There’s also roles too.

Meanwhile, half the skillset comes from weapons, like GW2’s. And the combat puts heavier emphasis on dodging and movement while activating skills, like GW2.

Hello everyone,

Despite the fact that this thread is constructive (thank you for that), this forum is dedicated to GW2 and its universe. Therefore, we’d ask you to please keep your discussions around the game.

Indeed, we do accept comparisons with other games as long as they are done in order to strengthen your argumentation, however, threads that compare GW2 with other games or just talk about other games are not accepted.

Thank you for your understanding.