How do we fix the holy trinity?

Don't fix that's not broken.

>>381850116
All DPS party with two pigeonholing the healer while one occupies the other team's DPS.

>>381850182
Fpbp. What more need be said?

>>381850182
There is a reason why we have so many WoW clones. holy trinity is to blame

>>381850329
>holy trinity is to blame
The holy trinity does not dictate that every MMO has to have a health bar instead of something like localized damage. Or mana tied to a character, rather than mana tied to a location. Or global chat or any other number of generic features.

WoW is the most successful MMO of all time. And developers copy all its mechanics because of that. Not because of the trinity, thats just one feature they copy in a whole list of shit.

>>381850116
Every attempt to "fix" it involves just making everything a DPS and gameplay devolves into zerging everything.

>>381850329
If we actually have WoW clones, why the fuck do they keep choosing to clone it in it's current shitty state and not when it was the 2 best MMO expansions encompassing the golden period of MMOs?.

There are no WoW clones, just shitty MMOs that mistaken grind for fun and waifus for content.

>>381850182
Fpbp.

>>381850116
Remove healer. Give healing to DPS that can't heal yourself. Force the DPS players to alternate between healing/fighting with some kind of mana vs rage system. It sounds counter intuitive but healing should generate rage, which is spent to deal damage, which generates mana which is spent to heal.

This makes DPS more interesting to play because players have to decide when to switch between healing and damage instead of mindlessly spamming. It also removes the problem of nobody wanting to play healer and too many people playing DPS.

no classes
just different builds from an open palette of skills and traits

with class hybrids

aggro needs to be done away with, enemies attack whoever is doing the most damage, and players need to have tanking, healing AND dps skills

>>381850116
get rid of class locked roles entirely and let gameplay and gear decide who does what

>>381854314
Then you end up with all classes feeling roughly the same and you end up with bad pvp that consists of two sides standing off in a stalemate forever, until one team can gank one opponent from full hp to zero and then a complete clusterfuck of dogpiling for the rest of the engagement.

Bring back support as a dedicated role, make it a square instead of a triangle.

Add in support/hybrids/debuffers+buffers in a 4th category

Make everyone DPS with there own utility.

>>381850329
>we have so many WoW clones
We have?

>>381854781
>classes
don't need em, they're superficial differences
>bad pvp
depends how it was balanced

>>381850116
I don't even understand what the whole issue with it is. What problem is being fixed by altering/removing/replacing the trinity of class types?

>>381854872
Also make hybrid roles. Not WoW style hybrid where you can respec to a different role, make a class that's a support DPS, tank DPS, healer support, etc.

That way you get to do a lot of different shit in combat instead of 1 role at a time. Balance it by making them a little worse at a specific role as compared to dedicated pures, but give them enough abilities and incentives to need to be brought to stuff.

There you go, gameplay diversity, shittons of classes, a niche for everyone.

>>381854946
You mean what FFXIV does?

>>381855086
Yea but with a combat system that isn't complete shit.

>>381854906
A dedicated buffer/debuffer has to be strong enough to warrant it's spot over just bringing another DPS. Even in that case it almost always going to be a one-of class with a niche as fuck playerbase since they are worse in smaller party sizes.

>>381855189
Design one and make millions on weeb autists then

File: mmo holy trinity.jpg (169KB, 758x840px) Image search: [Google]

169KB, 758x840px

fixed

File: 1495085168901.jpg (92KB, 1044x528px) Image search: [Google]

92KB, 1044x528px

>>381850116
Change "healer" to "support" and add class mechanics that aren't just healing

>>381853902
Gw2 classes sucked. Having massive flaws in each class is crucial in an MMO.

>>381855298
That game already exists it's Blade and Soul. Unfortunately that game is shit.

>>381850116

More hybrid class design, or no classes at all and go freeform.

The only thing stopping GW2 from working was the fact you couldn't be a healer at all and that aggro was so poorly designed that instead of being something everyone managed like their healing it was totally random meaning everyone just spammed their heals, buffs and defensive skills on each other in corners.

that and shit content in general

>>381855362
B&S isn't any different than Tera or Vindictus is combatwise, and Vindictus still does it better for the most part, it's just a shame it's still stuck in a lobby dungeon-run game.

>>381855327
I'm gonna need sauce on that chef

>>381850182
It is broken, though. Unless your game only supports parties of 3, then there is an imbalance in the amount of roles required. The typical and most sensible is 3 DPS, 1 Tank, and 1 Healer. Larger groups have a similar ratio, but might have an even higher ratio of DPS.
This means that the devs either need to put in a disproportionate amount of DPS classes, or that the tank/healer classes are being unplayed.

>>381855327
You mean turn archaic mmo classes to modern MOBA classes

>>381850116
Return to the EQ style of Tank, DPS, Healer, Crowd Control, Support (mix of primary buffer, weak CC, and ok dps and heals)

>>381853619
They have tried making vanilla pandering mmos like wildstar, and you can see how that turned out. They pandered so hard to the "hardcore" players that like 1% of players cleared the first raid or something is wasthat punishing. Vanilla/bc clones aren't what people want, they want the nostalgia of the things they loved years ago. I do to, I want the feeling of vanilla wow back but the reason I never played nost or private servers is because it's not the game nostalgia I want, it's experiencing it for the first time when I was younger and doing it now would just ruin the memories

>>381854314
Removing class/role specialization homogenizes all of the classes and results in a game in which all of the classes are just interchangeable. This is bad.

>>381855965
You fucks wouldn't know what you wanted if it came up and stuck it's dick in your mouth.

The MMO genre needs a drastic and revolutionary change and no one knows what it is or what it should be.

>>381855261
it's not difficult just depends on the combat system, i could design an assmancer then give every enemy an assbar and voila assmancer is mandatory

>>381856165
works in runescape. but i think a skill tree that branches off in many different categories would work. you could specialize as a mage, archer, paladin.. whatever, but all classes need to be able to drop nukes, tank damage and heal up when they're not tanking damage

>>381856165
You don't need classes at all.

>>381850116
You make the supporting classes more skill-baed than the DPS ones.

There is this mentality that the poor supports deserve a medal for their service, and also in order to push more people into those roles, they are made simple yet effective. That is completely the opposite of the original intention, though. In modern games, they end up boring and insipid.

There is no honor among picking supporting roles in most modern games, no "I did that", no "I contributed with my skills". If your merit of picking support starts and ends at "I chose this class", the game is objectively trash and a class system is superfluous and also detrimental.

As per usual, the core of the problem is casualizing the fuck out of everything assuming things will just be better if you dilute them down to pushing a button to win. It's a downward spiral that sees no end.

You want to fix the support population issue that plagues normie games? Make them difficult, fun, and impactful in a skill-based manner. There you go. You will now have people actively wanting to fill those roles and actually wanting to do well at it, rather than "being the guy who picked the required class", which is inherently submissive and humiliating.

Healers and tanks can be power fantasies to. The big cancer of games is that only DPS is designed to be that way, I have no idea why this hivemind mentality formed, it makes no sense whatsoever.

I think the reason lies in taking the short term solution to fixing the support population. Make them strong and easy, so players will flock to them after a balance patch (and subsequently this was ingrained into the standards and then tank/healer role became expected to be autopilot snoozefests). But that is a destrictive long-term plan for both the class and the game as a whole.

>>381856310
Runescape is essentially a solo game though. There isn't much you need a party to do outside of a few quests and it doesn't have coordinated PvE content akin to raid encounters.

>>381856312
You need specializations. Even if everyone starts the same (no classes), the specializations will create what are essentially classes. So really there's no point in removing classes.
Especially because it makes "balance" a complete mess as theoretically every ability can be combined with every other ability, rather than abilities being restricted into pools available to classes.

>>381856312
>>381856310
Runescape pvp sucks though. It's nothing but dogpile ganking or 99-0 bursting. There's no actua strategy, it's just a matter of who gets the first hit in and who hits the lucky spec.

>>381856610
the only reason you need a party in wow is coz they force it on you, doesn't need to be that way and isn't there raids in runescape now? haven't played in a while

>>381856494
>You want to fix the support population issue that plagues normie games? Make them difficult, fun, and impactful in a skill-based manner.

There is a reason supports are often relegated to buff-bitches though. It's because when all you have to do is keep up some buffs or use a cooldown every now and again it drives the skill floor up. Your idea of skill-focused support sounds great on paper but the reality is if you make playing support that complex than it's only going to frustrate the support player when he's forced to play with shitters who don't make the most of his abilities. In an ideal world he'd only play with similarly skilled players in his own guild but pugging is a reality all MMOs need to deal with and that kind of class design just breeds contempt for others.

>>381856851
>Runescape pvp sucks though.
how? it's pure rng like any other pvp in an mmo

>>381856494
>You make the supporting classes more skill-baed than the DPS ones.
>There is this mentality that the poor supports deserve a medal for their service, and also in order to push more people into those roles, they are made simple yet effective. That is completely the opposite of the original intention, though. In modern games, they end up boring and insipid.
Agreed, that's why they should stray away from "healers" and more toward "supports". Make them heal, CC, and buff, with the buffs being more temporary and upkeep-intensive than they currently are in MMOs. For example, buff player X's damage by 50% for 6s seconds, with a 10s cooldown, instead of just flat buffing everyone's damage for an hour.

>>381856901
It's not the same thing, the way runescape is built it can't have raid encounters the same as WoW or similar games.

>>381857026
Then you would just be a buff vending machine while someone who specialized in healing healed.

>>381857058
well runescape isn't a complicated game, i'm sure you could implement runescape style character building without the need for classes in a wow like mmo

>>381856901
you need a party in wow because the game is balanced around playing with a party
there's nothing stopping them from doing something like diablo where the entire game is playable solo with optional multiplayer

>>381856205
Exactly which is why we don't need vanilla clones, we need the next vanilla wow like jump in experience. But with technology and internet in such a different state than it was 12 years ago, it's not going to happen again. People don't talk in mmos and shit anymore. Vanilla wow was one of my first online game experiences I really remember and that kind of socialization just doesn't exist anymore. People aren't as excited about meeting other people online anymore, everyone's too jaded. I don't know what the next wow is and I doubt anymore does, if it happens it will just happen, but with people like they are today the chances of that might as well be 0

>>381850116
You make the utility classes useful. Such as Paladins in Vanilla WoW, but make them fun and interesting to play beyond being a 5 minute blessing bot.

>>381850116
IMO they should ditch DPS.
They should instead focus on utility like multitarget, debuffs, and crowd control.
Also melee should do more damage than range and be more tanky so people will natural gravitate to the harder tank role.

>>381857145
I suggested they also heal, why would they mutually exclusive? Casting one buff every 10 seconds alongside healing doesn't seem outrageous.

>>381855321
Hey, my friend made that image.

>>381856494
But DPS is almost always the least skill based role in MMOs, the genre that invented the damn thing.

>I tank!
>I heal!
>I damage per second!
Why are MMO players so retarded?

>>381857380
Because someone specialized in healing will do a much better job than the assigned vending machine, see druids and paladins in vanilla wow.

>>381857301
Facebook killed MMOs, pretty much.

>>381857385
But it makes people think they're performing the most skill, because the biggest numbers pop up.

Make it Support/Damage/Control and have fights be more interesting than Tank and Spank. Have damage be less fixed so people can readily avoid it more so mandatory whack a mole healing is not required.

>>381857460
I'm saying to change all healers, in order to make the role more interesting. It would completely defeat the purpose if there were still classes in the game that are entirely dedicated to healing and nothing else.

File: 1498447298661.jpg (277KB, 758x855px) Image search: [Google]

277KB, 758x855px

ez

>>381857301
The next step in MMOs is this open world survival shit that's so popular now.

>>381852596
Isn't that how warfare developed in real life?

>>381857443
What are you even trying to say?

>>381850116
Easy fix.
Everybody is a tank/healer/dps then nobody needs a tank/healer/dps.

>>381850116
I remember old ffxiv where you could fill your bar with any skill of any class as long as you had the levels. It became so fucking soulless. Made me realize I love archetypes.

The best mechanic would be to completely remove healing.

Remove healing and this forces an entire new way to do dungeon mechanics and dps checks.

File: image.jpg (431KB, 908x1024px) Image search: [Google]

431KB, 908x1024px

>>381850116
Like this

>>381857885
Whats the difference between a debuffer and a buffer?

>>381857659
Yeah, and real life warfar got boring quickly.

>>381857998
u srs m8?

>>381857885
>I wanna be a buffer/debuffer
>okay. see you 1000 years because grinding is going to be hell for you unless you got carried.

>>381857998
One debuffs enemies, the other buffs allies. What are you confused about?

>>381857859
nah everything becomes a personal responsibility mechanic like dodging techs, ruins the entire group dynamic

>>381858138
You just buff yourself.

Works for DFO's Crusader class.

>>381858234
Exactly, This means that the team WILL fail if one person is not good enough.

This forces a very elite group rework. Meaning the people who do end game content are only those who can actually do it, no more carrying.

>>381858157
>>381858119
>should I buff my team mates to increase their damage output by 50%, or debuff my enemies to increase their damage taken by 50%?
Again, what's the difference

>>381857885
gon 2 need more interesting roll for buffer/debuffer. crowd control for instance.

>>381858308
Buffs effect that character's damage against all targets
Debuffs effect everyone's damage against that one target.

>>381858327
Everybody will have a CC, even the healer. The healer can CC-attract their own allie' movement back toward the healer so they are within healing range

>>381858119
>>381858157
They both have the same impact on the team

>>381855261
Everquest did this very well with Enchanters. Enchanters were the undisputed kings of CC in that game. They also brought something to the table that only one other class could do at the time, and in a limited capacity compared to Enchanters. Mana regeneration. Of course they did have nukes, but they weren't very good.

Along with incredible CC and mana regen, they could also charm, turning an enemy into a pet temporarily. On top of this they also had the best DPS utility spell in the game in the form of haste, causing other players to melee attack faster. They themselves did fuck all if any damage at all, but having an enchanter in your group was a very potent force multiplier in that they increased the DPS of others, dramatically improved resources of other classes (mana), and made encounters much easier to deal with in the form of mass crowd control.

Its already been done, and it was done well. God I miss EQ.

>>381850116
make combat like darksouls

>>381858308
>should I buff my team to reduce their cooldown times, or should I debuff the enemy to deal less damage?
If you hamfist a way to make the buff and debuff effectively exactly the same thing, then yeah I'm sure there's no difference. But anon, I'm sure you can brainstorm some more creative buffs/debuffs than that.
Not to mention the fact that the buff only increases the damage of one ally, while the debuff increases damage taken from ALL allies, so the debuff is far more valuable.

Bring back Crowd Control as the 3rd pillar, instead of DPS. or add CC as the 4th pillar.

EverQuest's "holy trinity" was Cleric, Warrior, Enchanter. it was less about design philosophy and more about who could actually get the job done.

File: 1497405331525.gif (2MB, 159x146px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 159x146px

>>381858481
AOE debuffs are a thing

>>381858568
Dark Souls has enough netcode problems with just 2v2s, now imagine instead of that, you were sending and recieving the precise movement information of hundreds, maybe thousands of people in any given zone. Even a tiny 5-man dungeon would need a top-end gaming computer with fiber internet to hope to handle, nevermind the cost of maintaining game servers.

>>381850116
You can't
Unless you make all classes mobile enough to avoid damage and enemies that don't just lock onto whoever draws aggro first, you'll need a tank
Unless you give every class healing skills or at least enough healing items to stay alive, you'll need a healer
Unless you make every class capable of dealing good enough damage or can at least disable enemies through status ailments, holds or hitstun, you'll need DPS

>>381858668
And so are AOE buffs, what's your point?

>>381858797
Exactly my point, there is none

>>381858308
>>381858495
Buffs don't have to be just changes to stats, like DoT, Heal over time, CC, MP restore, etc

>>381858495
that's like saying tanking/healing are the same because they both manage damage

they're different thematically

i want as much crazy shit to manage as possible, regen/threat/cc/morale/rest/food/etc

>>381858668
Only if you design them that way.

And besides, that requires the party to control enemy locations to get them all inside the AoE, instead of an AoE buff where it's very easy (retards aside) to get your whole party together.

File: 81d2fac2da5d4175e1caf4899f01c56d.jpg (49KB, 500x339px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 500x339px

>>381858845
Good job making no point then.

Making every class Tank/Dps and Healer/DPS. Now we have a duality.

File: 1498443946779.jpg (47KB, 640x480px) Image search: [Google]

47KB, 640x480px

introduce more larger and complex battling systems that require more team coordination
and people

>>381858728
fingers crossed the future will have better netcode technology

>>381858765
>you'll need a healer
You actually don't need a healer, you however do need to provide either a large enough life pool Or small enough enemy pools that you can tear through them quickly.

Make all tanks bulky DPS

Lol roadhog

Remove DPS or remove Healer. Add a lot more support options.

File: 1494432206140.jpg (119KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

119KB, 1280x720px

>>381858958
Looks like i won this argument
All in a days work

>>381858573
But a buff can work against all enemies, so I wouldn't say either is inherently less valuable than the other. A dungeon with fewer, stronger enemies will have a better time with more focus on debuffers, single-target DPS and tanks, but another location with an army of opponents will benefit from having buffers, AoE and CC more.

The "difference" between buffer/debuffer is that they stack, whille multiple buffers/debuffers don't by themselves. So buffer + debuffer > 2 buffers / 2 debuffers.

>>381850116
WoW was doing a great job of this up through Wrath subdividing each role into their own niche and playstyle.

Then they had to ruin the deep gameplay and make everything easy for beginners. Then they lost their veteran core and couldn't figure out that it was the dumbed-down gameplay that did it.

>>381859219
You're absolute right, my mistake on that point.

>>381850116
Design a game in that engagements aren't so simple.

The trinity exists because of the game's mechanics:

Enemies have health that must be depleted to win.
Players have health that must be maintained to win.

When this goes away the possibilities expand greatly.

>>381856851
Runescape3 my dude, not OSRS
Runescape3's combat system is far superior, but the engine itself can't handle it, game ticks are 600ms compared to like 50ms for something like wow.

You are now assigned to create ONE interesting and unique ability for either buffer or debuffer. I'll start:
Buff an ally for a short period to have a phantasm following them around copying their every move with a delay, like Zero's Sougenmu from MvC

>>381850116
AoE: DPS, CC/Debuffer, Healer/Buffer
Single-Target: DPS, Tank, Healer/Buffer
Fixed

>>381859958
Debuff an enemy to halve its speed (movement, cooldowns, etc).

>>381859958
Buff an ally so that the next combo finisher or major spender they use deals bonus damage or healing (with overhealing from this granted in the form of shielding), and passes the buff to another ally with an increased bonus multiplier. Lasts until someone doesn't trigger the pass, or it makes a full cycle of the party.

>>381859958
Zombie virus debuff, where if the enemy goes on without being killed for long enough, will become a zombie and aggro to the nearest target and pass on the virus.