(You)'re designing your very own game and you decide to add a fourth role without disrupting the perfect harmony, what is it?

>>714116806 (OP)
Mage

>>714116806 (OP)
Support - he deals very little dmg by himself but he can cast buffs and debuffs, no healing.

Tactician: buffs, debuffs and status effects

>>714116806 (OP)
zoner who would be responsible for any or all of the following
>providing control/limiting amount of enemies can hit the tank
>applying weakening debuffs on enemies for the sake of the tank/dps
>kill vip but otherwise very hard to reach targets that the dps could not
it would suck but the mmo trinity already sucks so what do you want from me

Support /thread

>>714117496
You don't /thread your own posts fucking newfag

>>714116806 (OP)
A 2nd dps, duh

>>714117839
Yes i do because everyone else said the same shit, faggot

RIFT already did this with a "Support" role but it was kinda unpopular because nobody wants to specifically be a cheerleader that only exists to buff and debuff

>>714116806 (OP)
Support, since healers won't be needing to really do that now give them a healing and damage balance gimmick sort of like BLMs fire and ice in ffxiv so they have something to do and won't just sit back and press heal 1 all run. The Support class could be buff/debuff and DoT focused like it can cast a shield that lowers damage on the target and reflects some back.

"No."

A debuffer that does damage through DoTs, can siphon life from enemies to give it to allies, in the form of a shield. Increase damage taken from enemies while buffing allies.
A hybrid between a healer and a DPS that isn't better than either role, but still needed.

It'd be impossible to balance which is why nobody has been capable of making a 4th role for the trinity.

>>714116806 (OP)
Janitor
As the other party members fight with the boss they start dropping shit (figurative but also maybe literal) everywhere which debuffs the group and impedes movement
The Janny cleans it up to recycle the energy he picked up to either buff or do big damage but once he blows his load he has to go back to cleaning
Every member of the trifecta has to be present for him to do his job but they can't properly do theirs without him cleaning up

>>714116806 (OP)
There are already RPGs with a fourth role. There's also no perfect harmony here, you've just gotten used to this and games are built around it.

>>714116806 (OP)
I remove it and make it like Runescape where you can do all 3.

A support who grants debuffs by grappling enemies
Does little damage but he can CC by literally throwing them around with chains and stacking up vulnerability

>>714116806 (OP)
Ideas guy

>>714116806 (OP)
A fourth dps role

I wouldn’t add to it because there’s no point. It’s like trying to add a new primary color. Literally every function you can think of could be added to one or all of the trinity in support of their function.

>dealing damage
>taking damage
> healing damage

Gonna make a debuffer branch? Debuffing is something tanks and healers both want to do. Buffing? That’s healers. Disrupting? That’s just debuffing. Summoning? That’s just a specific way to do damage or support or tank.

Just because a natural concept has been around forever doesn’t mean you need to change it. We don’t need a third primary color, a 4th light on a traffic light, a 3rd gender, a 2nd tire shape or whatever else.

Instead of trying to think of a 4th concept to interact with health, you should think of unique/fun/interesting ways of doing the other 3 concepts(tanking/supporting/damaging)

Crowd Control, the original 3rd pillar of MMOs.

History lesson. The first use of the phrase "Holy trinity" in an MMO space was a derogatory term for EverQuest, because, at the time, all meaningful content required a Cleric (the only healer with good heals), a Warrior (the only tank that was worth a damn), and an Enchanter (CC/haste/slow/charm DPS) to accomplish

bringing CC back as the 4th pillar is just a return to normality

>>714122565
The problem with your argument is that you don't need three roles either. You can just have two. Or one. Three isn't special, it's just the one a plurality of people have decided falls the best distance on the continuum of complexity.

Addendum: Why limit yourself to one role per class?

old EQ had Tank, healer, CC, DPS, debuffer, support, and pulling as group roles.

City of Heroes you can do all of the content without healers because buffs, debuffs, and CC are tremendously strong. The most effective 1v1 tank was a niche build from pet archetypes.

MMO designers just dont think flexibly enough.

>>714122951
Good to see another controlchad out there. I'm usually the guy who types this in the weekly holy trinity thread just to get ignored. I think control fell off as the focus on boss fights and hard enrages started to overshadow dungeons or mobs of elites, the kind of content you used to see everywhere in EQ, CoH or vanilla WoW's leveling experience. Eventually, all fight design boiled down to a single enemy on a complex script, and that enemy couldn't be interrupted or manipulated in any way for fear of disrupting the 'mechanics'. I still think an MMO that focused properly on managing large mobs of enemies with vastly different threat ranges could bring the original trinity back.

>>714123258
Depending on the system, the trinity could be officially absent. But if there’s combat, the concept of “dealing damage”, “taking damage”, and “supporting the other 2 concepts(via heals, buffs or debuffs) will always just naturally happen. It’s an inescapable reality that’s both present and easily recognizable and understandable in any rpg no matter what. Even if the rpg tries its best to get away from it

>support
I'd rather have another DPS on my team.

>>714116806 (OP)
lootgoblin class
instead of dealing damage to the boss it slowly builds up a percentage loot boost meter
now you have to balance healers/dps with lootgoblins to maximize rewards but still be able to clear the raid

>>714116806 (OP)
Terraformer, only class that can manipulate terrain and over world objects. This can both help and hinder the other three.

>>714116806 (OP)
>goon support
Does nothing, only adds lust provocative companion.

Dodgemaster. Someone focused on being a dodge tank while also giving AOE evasion buffs to allies.

>>714124516
If you look at the history of RPGs, this isn't really true. If you look at a basic combat game (the idea of the trinity only works in combat) it's a game of decreasing the enemy's numbers before they decrease yours. If you have allies, it makes sense to specialize in different strategies for achieving this (specialization is better than generalization in a group). However, lowering the damage you take is irrelevant if you can't control enemy hate, so in old RPGs the difference between tanks and glass cannons is a moot point, they're just both damage dealers but one's faster and more risky. This is why in most MMOs tanks are given hate control. You could, if you wanted to, make an entire party role dedicated to controlling hate, something that isn't maybe 100% needed but makes combat much easier, like every other role. The only reason developers don't do this is because just standing there being tanky is boring, so they give tanks hate control so they have something to do - but there are other solutions to that as well. They could make tanking a proactive role, such as through parries, dodge tanking, etc. A tank could in theory just be a character who's good at recovering from hits, too, like someone with lifesteal or heals that only work themselves.

I haven't even mentioned supports. Healing comes in next. If you have a guy who's good at resisting their numbers going down and you have a guy who's good at making the enemy's numbers go down, maybe you can have a guy that makes your own team's numbers go up? But you don't need to. Everyone could just have healing themselves. Or there could be no healing: it's kinda' immersion-breaking and the mechanical purpose of healing in most games is to let players recover from their mistakes, but you could just the same give players more HP. Supports in video games get treated like Mary Sues, they can do nothing on their own but are somehow more integral to a party's success than any other role. They tend to be lame.

>>714116806 (OP)
I liked what Overwatch was initially doing with the Defense class, characters that weren't very tanky but were good at crowd control and area denial.

>>714124516
>>714125415
It's also you saying the healer also has to be the buffer and the debuffer. That's not written anywhere. There's plenty of RPGs where this isn't the case.

There's also need for crowd control if enemies come at you one at a time, but you could just design the game so that you fight groups of enemies, and then you'd need crowd control, and someone to be said crowd controller. And that's just one thing. You can easily make combat more complex to allow for more party roles. You're just married to the idea of two sides trying to lower a single number.

I'd introduce more combat mechanics to create the need for a fourth class.

>>714116806 (OP)
The Commander. Someone who has a bird's eye view of the battlefield and has tools and abilities that help them coordinate the other players. Like maybe they're able to see which part of the arena enemy cannons are aiming at so they can tell the party to get out of the way, deploy markers, keep an eye on the numbers, interact with the mechanic in a unique way, etc.

Basically, taking the AoE warnings from XIV raids and making them a player's responsability

>>714116987
dealing magic damage is just dealing damage and mages are usually damage dealers with more flexibility

>>714117169
that's just support renamed

>>714117303
you described support and dps but at a distance.

>>714119212
support is already typically balancing between healing and buffing/debuffing. splitting the archetype into healing/damaging and exclusively buffing/debuffing just mixes dps/support and then makes an unnecessarily specific and boring version of a support

>>714119679
debuffing is one of the core jobs of the support archetype. DAMAGE over time is a tertiary trait thats thrown around to all 3 archetypes just as a filler action, life siphoning is common to specific types of DPS and tanks etc. just taking traits from the 3 archetypes and mixing them together doesnt make a valid 4th archetype.

>>714116806 (OP)
Nah I remove tank and heal. Now the game is actually fun and skill based for everyone involved.

>>714120241
with this 'jobless' approach, you'll naturally and inevitably be getting the vast majority of players focusing/specializing in doing damage, taking damage, or support the previous functions to some degree. even if the trinity isn't specifically stated in-game, the concept is still the same.

>>714120390
very cool implementation of support, but still a support

>>714124447
>>714122951
crowd control and it's responsibilities is solidly and logically part of the support archetype. it just changed names and versatility gradually over the years.

>>714123721
>Why limit yourself to one role per class?
i think it would be difficult to find any class in any rpg that ONLY tanks/supports/damages. Most rpg systems with classes already have a certain amount of potential in doing a function that isn't their primary role. tanks and supports still have auto/basic attacks, dps classes usually have some way to dodge/tank/recover damage without being instant-killed etc.

>>714116806 (OP)
it's already been done, it's buffer and debuffer. enchanters and stuff
your holy trinity is shit because devs are weak pussies who always cave and allow everyone to do everything. it should be hyper specific, you should be able to do one role, in a variety of different ways, but still one singular role with no crossover and overlap with anyone else
my game would not be successful because to be successful you have to cater to retards who want to be able to do everything and never have to rely on anyone else, and my game would require players to rely on other players constantly. want a weapon made? need a blacksmith. blacksmith needs materials? well the blacksmith needs to hire a miner or buy from a miner who has already mined the stuff. miner needs to mine? unfortuante, he's gonna have to make a deal with or hire a party of adventurers to take him to the locations and defend him whilst he mines. your party will need non combat heavy focused help like a scout and trap disarmer or it's gonna die and get lost in dungeons, they can still contribute in a fight but at an insignificant value compared to an adventurer. encounter design will specifically fuck over individual archetypes and benefit others from fight to fight within the same dungeon so that it is not possible to bring a min maxed party of "only x/y/z", it will -always- be beneficial to have one of any class no matter where you are going and you simply have to make do that some encounters are going to be harder for your group than others.

>>714124447
Control/debuffing is a staple in a lot of Guild Wars team builds because enemy AI isn't programmed to always target a tank (in fact, it tries to ignore tanky targets), and incoming damage is high enough that it can easily overwhelm healers if you don't mitigate it by disabling enemies. It also helps that the most CC oriented class in the game is mega busted.

Like you suggest, GW is a lot more focused on fighting enemy groups, rather than raid bosses with sets of mechanics. The entire way the combat system is set up is so that enemies are borderline PvP bots, running the same classes & skills that players use, and often running a 'balanced' team composition consisting of casters, physical ranged/melee, and support/healers all mixed together.

Farmer that produces food and doesnt fight and doesnt even get in battles at all he just farms and then they go to him to get food

>>714116806 (OP)
Scout class? I feel like that’s the only thing you could do with disrupting harmony.
>doesn’t dps
>doesn’t tank
>doesn’t support
He could easily scout out the map/arena all while be in disguise or hidden. Maybe lays traps or disrupts the enemy team. People in here saying >support. But that’s literally what the healer does. Most games allow the healer/support class to do both buff and healing so adding a whole other class in that type would disrupt the trinity harmony.

>>714116806 (OP)
Boobs role. A character with big bouncy boobs

>>714126464
Without*

I wouldn't use the trinity in the first place.

>>714125396
dodgemaster(dodge tanks) is a very cool concept for a tank, but ultimately, just a tank.

>>714125415
there's going to be differences between tabletop and video game rpgs, and even differences in different systems in ttrpgs and video game rpgs, but if you take a step back, the concepts remain the same.

if you took out enmity from ff14 or hate control by whatever name you want to call it, the game wouldn't work. To fix that issue, you'd have to give dps and supports tools to tank damage, and tanks tools to deal damage and support. the lines become blurred, and eevery class now has a way to flex into the other archetypes, but ultimately each class would still have a specific specialization. Instead of

>Dragoon - dps
it becomes something like
>Dragoon - 5/5 dps potential, 3/5 tank potential, 2/5 support potential
Like one of those stat pentagons

>>714125653
>It's also you saying the healer also has to be the buffer and the debuffer. That's not written anywhere.
thats how modern design philosophy just developed for better or worse. most people have the opinion that support is the worst and most boring archetype. now imagine if you split the archetype into "Literally just heals".

If an rpg had a tank class that could ONLY use its actions to tank a single specific damage type, that class would be hyper specific, poorly designed, and boring. You could argue that debuffing is more of a tank responsibility versus a support responsibility, but at that point i think its just splitting hairs.

Different rpgs can have specific mechanics/gimmicks to their combat, but I would argue that's not a fair example. If a game had zero way to heal, buff or debuff in a game, that's artificially stopping the trinity from existing.

>>714126464
>glf burglar to go

>>714116806 (OP)
Bard.

>>714126258
I would make the argument that buffer/debuffer is under the support archetype.

>>714126464
how do you describe "Support"? every example of a healer/dps/tank archetype has some amount of capability to do the other 2 archetypes.

A rogue/scout class that assists tanks and dps with enemy info, debuffs enemies with traps and disruptions can only be described as a support imo. I won't say that disguising yourself and avoiding combat is a tank-trait, but if it functions like in-combat invisibility/blind/confusion then...there's an argument to be made. Since support doesnt imply it HAS to be magical in nature or anything.

>>714127239
I've seen plenty of bards in plenty of systems. they land squarely in the support archetype, or the dps archetype, depending on which one they have more potential in.

Fuck adding a new role. How to make a hybrid fit into the system and be actually good and also actually be a hybrid and not "you are [role] but you get the token abilities of other roles for flavor."

t. eternally livid clericfag.

>>714126928
>the lines become blurred, and eevery class now has a way to flex into the other archetypes
That's literally just using being biased towards the tank role existing. "If it didn't exist, then...everyone would be a tank!" Yeah, no shit. And? There's no problem with that - unless you're married to the concept of it existing, which you are. There isn't anything rational about it, you've just decided it needs to be that way. In tabletop and single-player RPGs, hate control doesn't exist, and the tank is just a strong, beefy damage dealer; the only thing that really makes them different from the nimble strikers is what they do outside of combat. Which is my point: no role needs to exist, the trinity is arbitrary.
>now imagine if you split the archetype into "Literally just heals"
I don't have to, there are RPGs like that. In D&D, there's a difference between supports and controllers. In FFXI, support didn't mean healer - it was generally understood that you wanted a healer and a buffer/debuffer. For example, Bards couldn't heal. White Mages could do more than heal, but no one really wanted them to.
>If a game had zero way to heal, buff or debuff in a game, that's artificially stopping the trinity from existing
It's not artificial. It's pretty normal for buffing and debuffing to be seen as a meme in most old RPGs, especially debuffing since serious enemies tend to be immune to it and trash mobs die too fast to make it worth your turn. Healing is also kinda' dumb on its face. Encounters are designed to be difficult enough that they require healing, but you could just make them NOT that difficult, then you wouldn't need healing. In D&D, it's generally considered a waste of time to heal while in combat, and in Souls games, everyone has an estus flask so having a dedicated healer feels like having a cheerleader.

>>714127509
Hybrids only work if everyone's a hybrid.

>>714127509
Adding hybrids is just about designing each one to FEEL unique even if you’re comparing two different support/tanks together.

Perhaps one support tank is better at support vs tank. Or maybe they just have different class mechanics that make the game flow feel drastically different from each other

It wouldn’t matter if the tanky-tank juggernaut class will ALWAYS be a better tank than the cleric if the cleric has enough advantages in other areas to validate their existence. Nitty gritty balance aside

Any game that operates primarily on Holy Trinity subsets is a dogshit game. It's one thing for it to be a functional and simple answer to a broad variety of encounters by providing a simple process by which a party can mitigate damage, restore said mitigated damage, and lastly apply more damage as damage mitigation and healing do not primarily apply damage, but it's another for there to be no other approach because bosses have 70 Trillion HP and deal explicitly enough damage to not kill a max level and fully geared tank with every swipe. A more feature-rich game would allow you to actually have a functional time with a variety of builds, such as having multiple healers who deal damage every time they choose to heal or heal every time they apply damage, or reflect/mirror casters who replace the "Tank" role with carefully calculated damage reflection, or having multiple DPS who can apply immeasurable damage by way of inter-class synergies that can pay off if they race the boss to the bottom before getting hit too hard. Amazing Cultivation Simulator even has this system of Chi flow wherein a group of Cultivators make a formation that sends tons of energy towards one central leader Cultivator and imbues them with massive amounts of power to then, as an individual, obliterate all of their targets by basically fighting as one ridiculous powerhouse feeding off of the power of his disciples.

>>714128154
so Guild Wars

Just add another dps. Give tanks debuff and CCs, and healers buffs and shit so its 2 support/2 damage.

>>714116806 (OP)
All the posts in this thread about "your job is to sit there and cast buffs" sounds like the most boring role possible. You don't have the tangible effect of DPS on the boss nor the quick response/reaction on a changing health situation that a healer has. A class that exists to basically pop everyone's CDs for them sounds like the most boring thing you could possibly be. Also you're just reinventing what healers and ranged DPS already do.

Support Class - Bard, Alchemist, Illusionist, Juggler, Gadgeteer, Time Mage

man I just love FFTA classes

>>714116806 (OP)
I don't, I instead remove healers and make healing a potion resource

>>714128671
Healer is just sitting there untill the boss pops THEIR CD and you respond to it

>>714125923
>uhhh ackshually support classes already do thes-
so dont have them do them. Make the 'support' be for healing and the new 'totally not a support' do whatever the old support used to.
>bbut thats retarded and redundant thats just meaningless specialization and seperation of mechanics
yes thats what mmo class archetypes all are, we all entered the thread with this knowledge.

>>714116806 (OP)
I'd replace the DPS with a crowd controller.
Every class can dps but each has an additional role.

>>714128671
I love buffing/debuffing. My favorite FFXI jobs were the support jobs.
>pop everyone's CDs
...see, here's the problem, you play garbage like WoW and XIV.

>>714128992
The absolute perfect array of classes are the ones in [whatever game I last played]

>>714116806 (OP)
The asshole rogue who makes everything more difficult.

if I was designing my own game it wouldn't be tab target trinity garbage to begin with

I don't understand how so many faggots bitched about dealing damage as healer in FFXIV. I played the free trial, dicked around with every class I could and throwing rocks as White Mage without going overboard on threat is not hard at all.

>>714116806 (OP)
Fuck you, I'm removing tanks instead

>>714129432
what is it with dumb kids and wanting everything to be absurdly overpowered?

>>714128671
EverQuest Bard says hi. One of the highest complexity classes in the game to play well, all it does is buff, debuff, and CC. Its damage is laughable, and yet every guild would take 9 of them in each raid.

>>714129420
the issue with FFXIV is that there is no randomness to the combats, so eventually 80% of what you do is throw rocks, because you or your partner already healed everything 20 seconds ago.

>>714129432
>,so it's also like a partner to her the of touchest battles.

>>714116806 (OP)
for all those people saying 'support'

healer already is support. thank you for reading my ted talk

>>714129420
When did you play? Cause healer's 'DPS' is dumbed down these days. It used to have a rotation combo

>>714129706
Everything is just supporting the Tank desu. He's the one fighting the enemies

>>714129730
Like a year ago, I just remember seeing people bitch that they shouldn't be expected to attack ever when they are healing, then I tried it and went "what the fuck else are they doing, you have a ton of downtime if everyone isn't mentally retarded and absorbing all avoidable damage"

>>714126928
>if you took out enmity from ff14 or hate control by whatever name you want to call it, the game wouldn't work.
this is classic inability to think outside the box, or in this case the triangle. your entire concept of class based systems is the trinity so you can't even imagine a game with a different dynamic.

>>714116806 (OP)
Senior manager.
Sticks his head round the entrance to the boss room twice during the fight and asks how things are going, advanced tactics involve making arbitrary changes to your hotbars and talents mid combat and taking 2/3 of the loot on a successful kill

>>714129819
other games do in fact sometimes require the healer to heal, its just that XIV isnt one of them. Those players are retarded. and sadly, thats the target audience for who Yoshi wants to play healers.

>>714116806 (OP)
Everyone is going to say Support, not realizing it's been done before and doesn't work.

You either have all content in the game that requires debuffing enemies, buffing allies, CCing loose mobs, and have to design every single encounter and boss fight around this.

-or-

It's underpowered to the point that it's a waste of a player slot.

Rift (when people actually played it) tried this. Every dungeon required 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 dps, and one support. This made dungeon queues take even longer because now there were 3 roles no one wanted to play.

9 times out of 10, when I queued as a Bard (support), I was asked to switch to Assassin (DPS) instead because we didn't need the buffs/debuffs/extra healing, and the damage an Assassin brought was more that a Bard plus buffs.

>>714129819
Yea you played what was the aftermath of all that. Ironically people complain that healing is too boring now cause they have nothing to do lmao. Devs can't win

>>714129819
what if?
something happens and you used your dumb gay mana on doing no damage instead of saving it for a shield

>>714129806
No, that's DPS. Tank is supporting them by making sure they don't die.

>>714128045
If tank as a roll didnt exist in the trinity, then suddenly all of the remaining support and dps classes will have their tanking abilities and potential judged. Even if the balance never got bad enough that one DPS was so bad at DPS that they were only good for acting like a tank, the classes with exceptional defensive capabilities would be considered if a player ever felt like they needed more defense. so naturally, the tank archetype of the trinity just comes back even if its no longer official. you seem familiar with dnd. the trinity doesn't official exist there, and each class has certain potential in all 3 of the archetype, but i'm sure you've heard the trinity used to describe the different classes.

>I don't have to, there are RPGs like that.
and they're not usually seen as very good. Not sure if it was to you specifically, but I've said before in this thread - you can deviate from the trinity and do your best to get away from it, like adding a class that ONLY has social or non-combat functions. but its most likely just making the system worse and creating a class that no one would want to play

>debuffing to be seen as a meme in most old RPGs
just because one quality of one of the archetypes is underwhelming, doesnt negate the existence of that archetype.

Taking a step back just to clarify, I just think that if the archetype doesn't officially exist, the missing elements will unofficially surface in the playerbase

>>714129938
That's why you plan for that and only use mana you can afford to lose

>>714130004
we're playing "what ifs" here though

>>714129938
Then you were a shit healer and I would have mocked you

>>714130071
It's a what if that assumes I'm misplaying though, and the obvious answer is "don't do that." You can plan ahead of a fuckup so you can react to it, and still use excess mana to deal a bit of damage. It's like saying you shouldn't fire your gun in an FPS because you might fire too much and run out of ammo.

>>714129942
I'll take on your opponent while you punch him from the side. Totally your fight bro!
Retard

>>714129280
you can uh ackshually all you want but that doesn't change anything. everyone who plays RPGs is familiar with the trinity, even if the details of what each archetype is slightly different(support being exclusively heals or buff/debuff for example).

Nothing can stop someone from making the dumbest fucking classes ever like a support that can do nothing but heal, or a tank that can't deal any damage, but the concept of the archetype trinity will still be present even if you try to hide it

>>714129908
why shouldnt buffing, debuffing, and CC be required? We reached the point we're at now because MMOs stepped away from the CC/Pulling/heavy Debuffing roles of EQ, FFXI, City of Heroes, etc in favor of simple content that can just be AE spammed forever. Make the world dangerous, make dungeons difficult.

>>714130210
DPS ends the fight, Tank does nothing but hold them in place so the DPS can work

It's really funny how you can play just about any RPG and make a wacky party that does so many different things, but when it comes to an MMO, it is literally a linear process and cannot ever be broken in any capacity. Jobs having fun one-of abilities that influence an entire fight can't exist because it damages muh balance. DPS that excel in one kind of fight while being bad at another can't exist because fights aren't built such to give this kind of DPS a distinct role. Buffs and positive status effects are always in the form of mild increments because otherwise support roles become extremely important rather than just being a button you can slap onto another role. Weird jobs that play their own little solitaire minigame to operate at full power can't exist because planning around it is hard and some faggot will autokick you if he hasn't planned on how he intends to use your role in his raid scenario. It's always the same rotation and nothing else.

>>714130292
Because players bitch and whine about it, same reason all strategy and needs for communication were gradually reduced so it's borderline a singleplayer game you can just unga bunga through. It's been this way for a long time, I remember when WoW TBC dropped and they nerfed the fuck out of the world bosses and that one undead dragon boss in Sunken Temple because it actually required some coordination instead of being a pure tank and spank. Players do not want to think or work together and will shit their diapers in manbaby rage if you force them to.

>>714116806 (OP)
Tanks and support are the same thing: they keep the DPS alive.

>>714130313
DPS are only required because of arbitrary time restrictions. A tank and healer could kill anything by themselves

>>714130361
it's more fun when you control every role, than being the singular role. might be on the spectrum but i just love sitting back, maybe support, maybe necromancing so my things do the fighting for me

>>714129823
I'll accept that there is probably a few RPGs out there that are talking sims with conversations taking the place of 'combat' and the concept of attacking/healing/tanking are so bfuscated they can't be compared to the trinity.

but if the rpg has
>combat
>that combat involves killing other things before they kill you
>and the player is given choice in regards to character customization

you're most likely going to have the concepts of dps/tank/support. Even if they aren't neatly labeled, one class/character is going to be best at attacking, one is going to be best at tanking, and one is going to be best at supporting.

It's not about thinking outside the box at this point. its just that there's literally only so many ways to interact with two teams of resources being pit against each other.

>>714130361
It's cause you can't expect a player to devote themselves to being the one note character like in a rpg. Most people would not pick that role. The trinity is the end product of that

>>714116806 (OP)
mana recharger

>>714130605
Oh and I love FFTA and the sequel (sequel is better)

>>714129958
literally
>>714129823
stop thinking about tab targeting games with aggro management and infinite healing. tanks don't exist because if you get hit more than 2 or 3 times in a fight you just die. healers don't exist because you can only heal out of combat. now you can freely design your class system without any relation to the trinity.

>>714126430
There are already a ton of people who play MMOs like that. Just farm resources all day every day to sell them.

>>714130661
tell me which class is the tank in diablo 2. who is the tank in fallout tactics? how do you make a healer in front mission 3?

tanking is just a subsection of crowd control

>>714129908
>You either have all content in the game that requires debuffing enemies, buffing allies, CCing loose mobs, and have to design every single encounter and boss fight around this
This is true for the other roles.

>>714125923
Introducing:
Support 2
Support(OG) does all the healing, buffing and shiet
Support 2 gives everything ass cancer, aids and ebola
you don't need Support 2 but you WANT to have one as it speeds up everyone's DPS and makes Support(OG)'s life more bearable as it makes everything deal less damage

The trinity is like this class pyramid. just replace fighter/rogue/mage with dps/tank/healer and its effectively the same thing.

Use it on any rpg system and the characters/classes will fit somewhere into the pyramid. You'll almost never find any archetype with a complete lack of ability to perform the other 2 archetype's functions.

The issue is that there's no other way to interact with health bars than the trinity based on your specific definitions of each archetype

DPS - You focus on dealing damage. Ranged, melee, burst, dot, magical, physical, it doesn't matter.
TANK - You focus on taking damage. Dodge tanks, enmity or not, defensive skills or defensive stats.

SUPPORT - You heal damage, and you facilitate in the dealing or taking of damage by your party members. That facilitation could be buffs/debuffs, or more indirect advantages/disadvantages like information

No matter how creative you wanna get with a class, when you boil it down that class is going to be tanking, dpsing, or supporting.

>>714130523
Counterpoint: DPS is the odd man out, and the reason the trinity is weird and unbalanced and everybody's constantly trying to fix it. Damage is just a normal function that everybody constantly does just by pushing buttons. The real trinity is Tank, Support, Control. Those would be extra responsibilities on TOP of doing damage, in an actual well-designed game:

>Aggro constantly depreciates and no one player can hold it forever, so you need multiple tanks
>Enemies are crazy powerful and often roam around in packs, encouraging multiple controllers to lock down dangerous spellcasters or assassins until the party can get around to killing them
>Debuffs and status effects like burning, sleep, slow, etc. are all actually debilitating and require different cures instead of one blanket esuna, encouraging multiple support players
>Every class is a hybrid that deals damage and helps fulfill one of the three essential responsibilities

>>714131325
there's no tanking in games without aggro management and unlimited healing. there's no healing if the game isn't designed to have a healer class. what now?

>>714131238
Yes, a class that exclusively debuffs enemies and does nothing else would still be considered a support imo

>>714116806 (OP)
Assassin class
>can pick off monsters/people and deal massive burst of damage
>but ONLY if they are unengaged
>their entire job is to dive in ahead of everyone and pick off key monsters that are absolute ass to fight
>can't do shit in an actual fight as their DPS is shit outside the burst damage on unaware targets
>also can't tank for shit
>or has any support skills
>their final job is to sacrifice themselves on the instance boss for some good% that can only be done once since once the boss gets agro'd once it becomes immune to any other sneak attack

>>714116806 (OP)
>>714131361
>Those would be
They used to be*
Really funny to me that people have no idea what old MMOs were like. Tank, damage, healer, support were the main class archetypes. Even then there was shit like puller, evade tank, physical tank, burst damage, sustained damage, etc.
Support was either buffing allies or debuffing enemies, sometimes both.
FFXIV and to a lesser extent WoW really fucked up the mmo genre. I don't think it will ever recover unless an indie comes in. Ashes of Creation is painfully fake.

>Tank
Crowd control (Offensive Support) and damage mitigation (prevention)
>Healer
Damage mitigation (healing) and ailment cleansing
>Warrior
Damage (Single-target DPS and single-target burst)

So this leaves
>Damage mitigation x2 (Defensive Support)
>Ailment cleansing (Defensive Support)
>Crowd control (Offensive Support)
>Damage x2

2/3rds of these roles are supportive. Considering how this is supposed to be the perfect trinity of jobs, this must be considered the "perfect ratio".
As such, the only way to maintain this ratio is to add in two more roles.
>Wizard
Damage (AoE crowd control) and crowd control (Offensive Support)
>Mechanic
Item Utility (repair and construction and increased efficiency) and trap creator (Offensive Support)

This ends up with
>Damage mitigation x2 (Defensive Support)
>Ailment cleansing (Defensive Support)
>Item Utility (Defensive Support)
>Crowd Control x2 (Offensive Support)
>Damage x3

>Tanks block damage, stun single-target opponents with counters, and draw aggro
>Healers heal damage and clear ailments
>Warriors destroy single targets and bypass defenses
>Wizards attack in high-damage AoEs that require cast-time and debuff enemies with magic
>Mechanics repair, build, and improve equipment and items, as well as create traps that can damage and debuff enemies

>>714116806 (OP)
I separate dps between slow-dps and flank

>>714129958
>If tank as a roll didnt exist in the trinity, then suddenly all of the remaining support and dps classes will have their tanking abilities and potential judged
Which is fine and is technically already true to an extent.
>the classes with exceptional defensive capabilities would be considered if a player ever felt like they needed more defense. so naturally, the tank archetype of the trinity just comes back even if its no longer official
You can make this same argument for anything that you don't consider a role, like melee vs. range or martial vs. magic. People already do this.
>i'm sure you've heard the trinity used to describe the different classes
There's four. Paladins, barbarians and fighters are the beefcake classes; rogues, monks and rangers are the nimble classes; bards, clerics and druids are support; wizards, sorcerers and warlocks are mages. In 4e parlance, the mages would be called controllers, and the nimble classes would be called strikers (DPS), but 5e does a terrible job of making them feel that way.
>they're not usually seen as very good
I consider FFXI the best MMO and it was like that. XI is the only dead MMO /v/ still talks about and has fond feelings for.
>just because one quality of one of the archetypes is underwhelming, doesnt negate the existence of that archetype
It could be removed and no one would notice, which is the very same argument you're making for >3 roles.
>if the archetype doesn't officially exist
Throughout the history of RPGs, they usually didn't. Developers didn't come out and say, "So these are the tanks and these are the supports," until recently. And it's terrible. No one wants to hear that. That's anti-RPG behavior.
>the missing elements will unofficially surface in the playerbase
That depends how the game is designed. You only play games that copy each other so they're all the same.

>>714116806 (OP)
>perfect harmony.
If this system is so great, why does everyone bitch about it?

>>714131463
>no aggro management
Then the tanks become the classes who are able to take the most damage without dying.i'm assuming defense, health, and dodge chance still exist. what about skills like active parrying or other damage mitigation? Does a class have a skill that heals yourself by an amount of damage you deal? Then the classes with those skills WON'T be the best damage dealers or supports because of obvious balance reasons, and will naturally be referred to as the tanks.

>unlimited healing
then you're not playing a real game with lose conditions.

>>714131325
>The trinity is like this class pyramid
That class pyramid assumes character traits boil down to three attributes, but most games have 4-7. When I think of games that only have 3, they're not RPGs.
>The issue is that there's no other way to interact with health bars than the trinity based on your specific definitions of each archetype
Someone who stops the enemy from increasing their own.

>>714131931
Cause it's too perfect and offers no room for variety or deviation.

Manipulator. A role that doesn't do any healing or buffs, doesn't do a whole lot of damage, and cannot tank.

Skills such as making a boss repeat their previous action. Forcing them to skip their next action. Giving them a new move in their pool that still does damage but may water down the pool so the boss doesn't do something even crazier next.

Terrain/arena manipulation that makes him important to get past certain mechanics. When the boss is doing a big mechanic, you are not provided with the tool by default that allows the party to survive. The manipulator has to create the tool for the party to use.

Can alter what the boss can see. If the boss has mechanics that make it target the weakest player with something. The manipulator can put a fake health bar on the lowest health player to make the boss believe their health is higher. This health bar does not influence any calculations for anything. It is simply there to confuse the boss mechanics. You could add various types of skills to such a system for bosses who read numbers to make decisions.

An ult ability that allows them to roll the boss back a phase for 10-20 seconds but they maintain their current health.

This class role would not disrupt the harmony because they would become part of the harmony. Different classes in the role could be stronger in different aspects these types of tools. They would be required to do their role well enough or else the whole party wipes quickly. If they are performing their role efficiently, the boss fight just feels like a fairly typically MMO fight. If they perform poorly, the boss gets to do all their craziest shit a little more frequently, and target more vulnerable players more often. Some mechanics will be impossible without them performing the bare minimum. They will not require absolute perfection if everyone else is playing well enough, but at least doing most things well enough for the tank and support to handle.

>>714129605
Bards up to GoD were 1 man armies. Literally a demi-god born into the shoes of a half bastard elf.
Whats that I can swarm kite the entire zone?
Whats that I can charm kite all the guards?
Whats that I'm essential to the core part of a high tier party just by existing?
Once they started getting mana boosts out the wazoo you could Denons burst down enemies so fast with zero(ZERO) punishment because of the fade AA
They've since been completely stripped into nothing more than aura bots in modern EQ. A sad end but still fun times on private servers.

>>714131949
but how will you tank if you can't control aggro? how is a game without unlimited healing not a real game? you literally can't even conceptualize a game that exists outside of your rigid ideas.

>>714116806 (OP)
Thief. Can steal abilities and items of the other three, can hold more than the other three combined. Abilities stolen have a time limit and cooldown.

>>714116806 (OP)
Mathematically, there are only 2 roles: Increase the rate the enemy team's health goes down; decrease the rate your team's health goes down. Everything else extends from those 2 inputs.

Tank, healer, controller? Those just slow the rate that the enemy drains your team's health. DPS, debuffer? They just increase the rate at which you drain your enemy's health. Commander, buffer? Just a fancy way of dealing more damage or taking less damage.

>>714116806 (OP)
Crafting class, optionally also an explorer/miner class focused on resource gathering for the crafting class, could also just come as part of it. Healers heal damage, tanks absorb damage, dps deal damage, crafters give them all their tools and toys.

>>714131889
>beefcake classes - I believe its fair to call these the tanks. I'm arguing that tanks as a concept may as well be a universal constant, and not that they're called tanks specifically. just to be clear.
>supports are still supports.
>nimble and mages
From what I know about dnd, i'd argue that the 'mages' are relatively overpowered in the way that they're both the optimal choice in dps AND support-style utility. An overpowered(group of) class doesn't indicate that the trinity is bad, but that the balance of the system itself is bad.

>Nimble
this is an interesting descriptor. I'm gonna assume that most playerbases don't consider mobility as so important that it needs an archetype all to itself. Mobility is usually just a secondary trait that facilitates dealing or not taking damage right?

So if someone took the dnd classes, and made another triangle that judged them based off of, idk, their mobility, social capability, and exploration potential, does that negate the existence of beefcakes and support? No, it just shifts the perspective

>>714119679
FFXIV has several classes that are exactly that lmao and it's incredibly well balanced.

>>714122565
>Buffing and debuffing is what healers do.
No lol. Buffing != Healing != Debuffing. Healers can get niche abilities to buff and debuff, but they aren't specialized in it. It's the same in that healers can do damage, but they aren't DPSs because they don't specialize in it. Hell, DPS often carry buff and debuff skills as well but they aren't considered support classes. A buffer/debuffer/support class would specialize in those aspects, which is something tank/DPS/healer doesn't do.

>>714116806 (OP)
Pretty much any other class you could come with that doesn't deal or take damage will fall under the support role.

>>714132293
Imo, the idea of “tanking” is “being able to take damage”. It doesn’t imply forcing damage to yourself instead of a party member. That’s just the way it’s done in an mmo setting

>>714133119
Every archetype can deal damage. Every archetype can buff/debuff. I’ll say it’s my personal experience that healers do the majority of buffing/debuffing but I wouldn’t say that they have specific monopoly on it

>>714133846
I think this is where a lot of the confusion stems from. Taking damage, dealing damage, and recovering health are basic gameplay functions. In a FPS game, you shoot, you get shot, and you recover health (it differs from game to game, sometimes you pick up health packs, sometimes you inject a stim, sometimes you hide behind cover and it slowly regenerates). Every single video game with a health bar has these basic functions.

What the tank/support/control guys (I'm one of them) are trying to say is that in a cooperative pve mmo setting, there are party responsibilities that are DISTINCT from those core gameplay functions. Tanking in an MMO is not taking damage. It's a variety of functions, like trying to build aggro, beefing up your defenses, moving to redirect a bosses cleaves or group enemies together, taunting from afar if you lose something, etc. Same with support and control.

The goddamn trinity keeps getting corrupted by these idiots who say it's tank/heal/dps. No. Those are the core gameplay functions. You try making a cooperative pve game with those basic non-responsibilities and you get reductive boring slop like modern WoW and FFXIV.

Tanking is not taking damage. Supporting is not healing. Controlling is not shooting a dude to make their health bar go down faster. Don't conflate the functions with the responsibilities, that's how MMOs got into this mess.

>>714130292
We're (unfortunately) past the point of no return on that.

Blame WoW, specially WotLK for (1) allowing dungeons to be aoe-spam blazed through and (2) adding in a cross-realm dungeon finder.

If you played the first month or two of Cataclysm (you didn't) you'd remember how Blizzard initially brought back dungeons that required CC and careful pulls, otherwise you'd wipe.

The backlash was huge. They even tried to make CC easier by having spells/abilities like Polymorph not immediately pull aggro on the rest of pack, but it didn't change anything. The players were really mad at 40+ minute DPS queues with runs that one person could fuck up and cause the whole group to disband.

>>714116806 (OP)
A "brute" tank that is not as tank as a tank so it can never be used in instances but not as DPS as a DPS so it falls behind on damage dealt. Some self heals but not enough to work without a healer in the group. This class will be seen as dogwater and never used but it is at least there to show people it exists.

Shoelacer

>>714116806 (OP)
remove tanks. 99% of mmos make it so generic dungeon mobs 1 shot non tanks and do normal damage to tanks. thats retarded, just remove them. let players decide which person wants the extra responsibility of having mob agro/positioning mobs. you dont need a dedicated class for that

remove healers. all damage should be avoidable. if you suck ass you can take more defensive/healing spells to recover from failing mechanics

>>714133846
ok so what if you can only get hit 2 or 3 times before you die no matter what class you are playing?

>>714134375
I get where you’re coming from. But is this the trinity of RPGs, or the trinity of pvemmorpgs? Does that plus sign symbol stand for Healers or Supports specifically? I think there are a lot of relatively small details that’s muddying up the topic based on individual perspective rather than a general and non-setting-specific understanding of the genre

>>714135054 are there also no defensive skills or attributes? Because then you got a very niche and nonstandard rpg. But just like shitting your pants, or making a combat system with no healing buffing and debuffing, just because it’s unique doesn’t mean it’s good

>>714134546
the average wow player is too stupid to play their own game. remember proving grounds in wod? a huge chunk of the playerbase could not do them while other people were doing them naked. its not surprising that blizz added a 1 button rotation macro now. the average wow player sucks ass at the game theyve given their life to

but heres a counterpoint: classic wow released. for years i heard you tards hype up how hardcore ye olde dungeons were. how they required coordination and cc. i finally got to experience them in classic
>walk up to trash pack
>poly one mob
>ice trap one mob
>hex one mob
>tank range pulls
>wait for enemies to walk up to tank
>wait for tank to get 5 stacks of sunder armor
>now you can finally dps 1-2 mobs at a time
>repeat when ccs wear off

that FUCKING BORING. anyone with an ounce of skill can do better than that. i ended up doing the zoomer spellcleave for every dungeon because it was fast and fun
>no tank
>3 frost mages, 1 lock, 1 priest
>lock summons eye of kilrog
>priest shields eye
>eye pulls all the trash in the dungeon
>mages use everything they have to slow/cc/root the huge wave of trash mobs
>lock spams hellfire, killing himself to deal mega damage
>priest keeps lock alive
higher skill expression, faster, funner, why the hell would anyone want to GO SLOW? you people advocating for ye olde trash ccs are geriatric boomers incapable of doing anything more complicated. you bitch and bemoan how epicly hard cata dungeons were, when really the only mechanics were "cc this guy/interupt that spell/tank the boss in that specific spot or we wipe"

>>714135298
it's not non-standard. there are plenty of games like that like vindictus and monster hunter
>but those aren't mmos
so what? there's no reason the same combat wouldn't work in a mmo.

>>714116806 (OP)
merchant

>>714116806 (OP)
>tanks no longer get modifiers for generating threat
>enemies immediately go to murder/tape the healer because anyone with an IQ over a jar of mayonnaise will realize the bitch slinging heals is the most important target to kill first
>melee fighters aren't 'roided up athletes and get fatigued after fighting the same fucking dragon for 30 minutes
>wizards are running out of spell slots/mana and can't nuke down shit after a couple minutes
>healers are constantly running on fumes by trying to dodge every attack while keeping everyone alive and not running out of resources

Have a role that deals little to no damage but:
>can summon illusions or illusionary attacks that make the armored dude look like he's doing all of the obnoxious shit
>can refresh the melee and spell guys so they can keep doing damage
>can float the healer more mana so they can keep the tank alive
>needs to drain resources from the boss/enemies to keep himself going as well and decrease the enemy's defenses to benefit the team

Too bad no one would want to play it.

>>714132618
There's no hate control in D&D, so tanks are just damage dealers who are willing to stand face to face with the enemy and trade hits blow for blow. This is in contrast to the the nimble classes, who I don't call that for their mobility, but for their reliance on DEX. These classes are usually skill monkeys who excel at avoiding damage instead of tanking it and dealing damage in specific ways, such as through speed, critical hits and outside the enemy's range or vision. In 4e, they were called strikers and were clearly supposed to be damage dealers, but they never actually do deal more damage than other classes, they're just glass cannons who avoid hits by being elusive, instead of using heavy armor, shields and/or raging.

The mages were called controllers in 4e, making them basically a non-healing support class, which is a fine way to describe wizards, but sounds stranger on sorcerer and warlock. I personally always think of the distinction as being offensive casters (or black mages) vs. defensive casters (or white mages), but this doesn't fit a party role scheme, it's more of just a traditional thematic setup.

That's the thing with party roles. They're not very RPG-like. People play Bard because they want to be a manipulative entertainer, not because they want to play support. People play Paladin because they want to be a valiant warrior with the power of god on their side, not because they want to be the officially recognized developer-approved tank. That's immersion-breaking. I understand that the developer needs to keep stuff like that in mind when balancing the game, but it's not what the player wants to hear. This is why modern MMOs are poop, they design the classes backwards.

>>714136043
>There's no hate control in D&D,
depends on the ruleset I'm pretty sure, Oath of the Crown Paladin in BG3 has a taunt for example.

>>714116806 (OP)
No need for a fourth role, WoW nailed the formula perfectly.
>tank tanks and takes care of mechanics, is more or less autonomous thanks to self heal
>healer focuses on healing unavoidable damage from the DPS players
>DPS decides how long each boss lasts

>>714135648
Both of the playstyles you describe are cool. One's slow and boring for you, but great for casual shitters, the vast majority of the population. The other playstyle is cool as fuck but requires high-level understanding of class kits and coordination. You're just proving the point that older game designs were better and allowed for greater varieties of play.

>>714135298
It's the trinity of pve mmorpgs. EQ1, CoH, FFXI, to a lesser extent classic WoW. Older games were literally better. They were also slow and looked like shit and ran like shit, but there's no reason those game designs can't return. Modern MMOs just picked the wrong trinity to copy.

>>714116806 (OP)
I just add dedicated mez, buff, and debuff classes back like they used to be before WoW cut them to made super cancer for normalfags.

>>714136171
The big problem with this is that the DPS role is pointless without boss enrages.

As long as the tanks and healers are able to stay alive and do some damage, the boss will die eventually.

So the "solution" is for every single boss to fight at 5-10% of their capabilities until an arbitrary amount of time passes and they one-shot everyone. Not because they're low on health or about to die, but because the theme park owner says that the ride is over and the party needs to try again if they want their loot.

>>714116806 (OP)
>the triangle killer doesn't exis-
for as flawed this game is, the fact that not all roles are set in stone for each class is amazing

>>714124447
have you ever played dofus?
positioners and controllers are incredibly important and core to the gameplay experience.

>>714136513
I dunno I think enrage timers are fine because otherwise you could just stack tanks and heals to eat mechanics and moves that don't instant kill and just sustain through it all.

>>714136143
Yes, a couple subclasses get a taunt and there's a spell that does it, too. It makes it so that the target has disadvantage if they attack someone else. That's it. Fighters and Barbarians aren't doing it. And your Paladin probably isn't either because no one plays Crown and that spell sucks.

>>714116806 (OP)
The Rapist
He rapes

>>714136513
The other option is resource attrition.

>>714135814

Just because that one super smash bros game had customizable specials doesn’t mean it was an rpg. There’s no hard line to distinguish how many rpg elements need to be present to make a game an rpg, but vindictive and monster hunter definitely aren’t what come to mind when most people think about RPGs.

>>714136223
>One's slow and boring for you, but great for casual shitters, the vast majority of the population
casual shitters will always be casual shitters though. id rather have a game designed for cool gameplay at high difficulty levels while still offering baby modes for casual shitters to fart around in

>You're just proving the point that older game designs were better and allowed for greater varieties of play.
no. classic wow has 1 difficulty level. its way too easy. retail has multiple difficulty levels. you can play low difficulty retail dungeons just like classic. slow pulls, cc 10 things, spend 10 hours to get through 1 dungeon, autoattack every enemy to death, every fight devolves into tank and spank. you can also play super hard dungeons that require high-level understanding of class kits and coordination

i dont understand why you people never want to improve. the "cc 5 guys then fight every trash mob 1v1" strategy is low skill, slow, and boring. dont you want to get better at the game?

>>714116806 (OP)
Banker.

>>714135648
The major difference in those playstyles comes from the mentality of the players at the time.

20+ years ago, people primarily played MMOs to chat with other people and have a social experience. Internet chatrooms were huge and games like Everquest and WoW were games you could play while chatting with people. Slow dungeons weren't a problem when it took forever to assemble the party and then you're hoping to make new friends to (1) have an enjoyable experience and (2) get groups faster next time.

This was long before things like LFG made other people disposable, you didn't need to worry about your reputation, and anyone not playing at a high level was a shitter that was preventing you from getting "your gear" in the fastest time.

You want to have fun playing on groups with high APM with high risk/reward payouts, feel free, but I wager you're only bored with the traditional method because you don't want to actually engage with anyone and just want your gear so you can move on to the next loot treadmill.

>>714116806 (OP)
actually there's only 2 classes, support and damage
tanking is a form of support

>>714137379
In fact there is only 1 class which is dps, everything is just funneling into your ability to have more dps. buffs? dps increase. Healing? Can't dps when you're dead, so it's a dps increase. Tanking? Read the previous comment.

>>714136830
I think they're just lazy when a boss just looks at his watch and casts a spell that instantly kills everyone yet doesn't bother if it's not time yet and just let's himself get killed.

Having an actual reason for it (see Lich King in WotLK) is much better. It's just ridiculous that a boss will sit on a party wipe and rather die than use it if the party/raid is fast enough.

>>714136739
No, but I respect it. I always wanted that level of strategy in a real time 3d mmo (because I'm a shit normie), but I know there are other genres with deeper gameplay. CoH is a decent example of a game that also emphasizes control effects, and it has a bunch of free private servers to try iirc.

>>714136513
That's the crazy thing, boss enrages exist BECAUSE the trinity got corrupted by the expectation that some players had no responsibilities other than to do damage. It's a reductive design trend. Designing interesting group fights with crowd control abilities was hard, so they got rid of the adds. CC against single bosses was too strong, so they got rid of CC. Without control, there was nothing to do and fights against single bosses were boring, so they added a bunch of scripted moves that forced players to dance around. Scripting minutes and minutes of unique boss mechanics was also too hard and had to be repeated every time they designed a new fight, so they dreamt up the idea of the hard enrage. All that work, for a game design that is flawed at its core.

>>714136841
I dunno disadvantage on incoming attacks is pretty good, it's a big part why being able to see through darkness is so good on Sorc, though being un-targetable by range is the other big reason. I imagine oath of crown with the insane frost build centered on armor of agathys would be pretty strong.

>>714136980
how is vindictus not a rpg? you level up and do quests and have equipment and skills and shit. if it's not a rpg then neither is wow.

>>714135814
lance, gunlance, sns, and gs can be hit more than "2 or 3 times before you die" and doesn't fit your example

>>714116806 (OP)
>not using the updated one
Welcome to NuBlizzard

>>714137554
>>714137379
this just makes it seem like "damage" isn't a real job/is just a role for people who can't handle other responsibilities while dealing damage

>>714137969
not if you don't have your shield up, and if you join a group and just stand there guarding the entire time saying "I'm tanking" everyone will laugh at you

>>714116806 (OP)
That would imply this is a perfect harmony to begin with. It isn't, support is a shit role nobody wants to play.

>>714137575
Oh sure but then any raid mechanic doesn't make sense because why would any boss cast a spell that can be avoided or dealt with if they have any kind of raid wide damage? it's a suspension of disbelief kind of deal, gotta make peace with the blatant artifice of the fights for the sake of the mechanical experience.

>>714138115
for gs yes but you absolutely can block hits and attack with sns and lance

>>714116806 (OP)
remove tank and healer and add support
fuck your rules

>>714137676
Like I said, there’s no hard line to how many rpg elements make a game an rpg. Your opinion is just as valid as mine even though I don’t agree. I wouldn’t call all these open world “action” games RPGs either and they usually have tacked on quests and stat systems and equipment and skills

Moles- dig under the map and can go into special areas like inside inacessable areas to the other roles. they collect dog tags or some shit in these special areas and fight enemy mole players for dominance and dog tags. physically pretty weak so they dont want to fuck around with the other roles in team fights as theyre just balanced for mole on mole combat. maybe they could have some recon abilities like a UAV/counter UAV or revealing enemy ultimate charge. perhaps also make shortcuts for the team or make a cave in for an enemy route.

>>714137193
do you play any sports in real life? imagine if you wanted to play baseball but everyone else refused to advance beyond t-ball with a "no running" rule because "its all about the socialization bro, youre just bored because you want to rush home and buy a new bat". its such a stupid mmo-brained argument. as a functional human adult who plays sports games and video games for the novelty and challenge, eventually playing baby difficulty games gets boring

I agree that 20 years ago people played the game differently. its crazy comparing old games to modern games and how play styles change and adapt. this isnt just a wow thing.going from elden ring to dark souls is a mindfuck, dark souls was brutally hard when it launched but now its a snoozefest. id never advocate for the next fromsoft game to be as easy as dark souls, just like i wouldnt advocate for the next wow expansion to be as easy as classic. my skills have increased to the point where that really isnt fun for me anymore. it was acceptable back then, but by now its boring

also you can socialize with voice chat now. you dont have to make a choice between typing in a chatbox or high apm gameplay. you can do both at the same time

>>714138251
explain exactly which rpg elements vindictus is missing that make it not a rpg

>>714138775
A focus on strategy and planning over skill.

>>714138668
>imagine if you wanted to play baseball but everyone else refused to advance beyond t-ball with a "no running" rule because "its all about the socialization bro, youre just bored because you want to rush home and buy a new bat"
ok but now imagine that instead of putting the ball on a post you just left it on the ground, and not only was there no running you drove around in a cart so you don't even have to walk, and you could take breaks to drink and smoke between innings. man that sounds retarded who would do something like that?

>>714117169
City of Heroes did this (it's still around). They had controllers that could lock down or confuse enemies. There were also summoners and buff specialists, and you could hybrid basically everything somehow.
They had so many power sets there was some overlap with healing but other sets were wildly different. Everything was potentially broken in either very good or very bad ways. Now it's all so safe and sterile all you do is worry about gear. No depth to it, no customization.

>>714138668
why are you showing up to the t-ball game expecting to play baseball

>>714138879
so pushing 1232312313 while you avoid standing in lava is "strategy and planning?"

>>714139040
yeah, especially if the lava pools only appear where you're standing and linger so everyone needs to move to drop those lava pools in ways that don't make navigating the rest of the arena a nightmare

>>714116806 (OP)
easy, crowd controller

>>714116806 (OP)
City of Heroes had a role called controller that was pretty interesting.

Supports focused on buffs and healing, while control splintered off to take care of enemy debuffs, crowd control, and pet summoning. it also had mostly AoE ranged attacks, where normally the other roles only had a single cone+targeted aoe.

>>714139025
the game is now baseball while people like the guy i replied to are crying that it isnt tball anymore

>>714136513
>>714136830
>>714136965
>>714137628
First of all tank+healer being able to stay alive infinitely is not a problem for every boss.

Second of all this is solved by having mechanics that require at least 3 players to solve. And especially mechanics that are easier the more players you have. Final boss of The Rookery is a perfect example of this: easy at 5 players, very hard at 4 players, starts being borderline impossible at 3, completely impossible at 2.

>>714139226
homecoming is back and both sides have all classes, there's masterminds and brutes on blue side and such

>>714139134
crowd controller is a bad role because it implies the entire game is designed around hordes of stupid little enemies you have to deal with

>>714139293
>Second of all this is solved by having mechanics that require at least 3 players to solve. And especially mechanics that are easier the more players you have
The base assumption is that this requirement is satisfied.

>>714139415
sounds fun

>>714119487
This class was more DPS than actual dps classes on top of ridiculous shutdown.

>>714139415
>the entire game is designed around hordes of stupid little enemies you have to deal with
this is a bad thing? amp up your regular attacks to 300% or 400% more damage and those little fuckers stay down when you hit them, 4 level highers than you or not
>he hasn't played with high performance wrecking crew

>>714136043
I just had a link talking about classes in dnd and lost it ffs
This DPS thing feels very wow-centric. WoW streamlined this a lot where now you have spells to attract enemies specifically because you are *the* tank and all that.

>>714116806 (OP)
Buffs class

>>714139348
Holy shit, my childhood. Thanks anon

city of heroes was fucking awesome. there were hordes everywhere and most of the time wiping them all was optional.
>one mob has 20 shitters
>about 8 lieutenants
>and two or three "bosses"
you had a team of 8 and sometimes people got in the groove. ranged characters would wipe all the shitters with AoE and the melee lads closed in on the tougher bosses to wipe them out. Half the team could clean up a mob fast so real good teams would leave super speed/super jump/fly on and leapfrog on every other mob and grind that shit twice as quickly. The arch-villain bosses were usually pretty lame but a nice meatwall to just go apeshit on was pretty good too. They added more mechanics more and more in later content.

>>714139040
Were you the one telling me I couldn’t conceive of a reality where tanking/damaging/supporting wasn’t the three pillars of an rpg? And now here you are telling me that the concept of satisfying strategy in an rpg that isn’t 123 is completely alien to you?

>>714116806 (OP)
none. In fact you can merge the defense and heal types, they're both just support.

It's best if you don't pigeonhole player options as "roles".

>>714140467
no you were claiming that vindictus isn't a rpg because it doesn't have "strategy or planning"

>>714139293
>all this is solved by having mechanics that require at least 3 players to solve

Then bring 4 tanks and 1 healer, or 3 tanks and 2 healers.

Why even bring dps in this scenario? They are more likely to die based on having lower armor and can't self heal as well as a dedicated healer. If you need 3 people to solve a mechanic, why bring people more likely to die and make the mechanic unsolvable?

>>714140679
A game can have both strategy and focus on player skill. Are you telling me vindictus is designed in a way that prioritizes and puts more focus on strategy and planning than it does on player skill and reactions?

>>714125415
>Supports in video games get treated like Mary Sues, they can do nothing on their own but are somehow more integral to a party's success than any other role. They tend to be lame.
depends a bit on the type of RPG

turn based JRPGs they can often be replaced by items. Few players actually unlock the gigabrain needed to realize that you can ditch the situatioal support role and instead have everyone in the party be a healer via the item menu

>>714116806 (OP)
Four distinct roles in a system that has more in common with classic party RPGs where there are distinct frontline fighters and ranged attackers in the back while more utilitarian tasks are shared by the team. The core of the gameplay is maintaining a formation and shutting down enemy movement. There's intentional overlap across each role because as the fight drags on, some party members will need to back off to recover, so allies will shift over and take their spot until the proper role is recovered. "Tanking" is the role of everyone in the front half, while "Support" is shared across the team.

The Frontline Fighters will make up about half the team, no aggro mechanics, they have to literally stand in the way of the enemy and keep them corralled. They aren't going to be weak hitting damage sponge "tanks"; they will deliver just as much as they take.
Striker is a special attacker who hits the enemy frontline from behind the safety of his own Line. Striker has high mobility to allow him to run interference and swat any enemies sneaking around, as well as pick up fallen allies to drag them to a safe spot. He can stand his ground at the front if the Frontliners are struggling, but ideally is an interceptor.
Ranger targets enemy heavy hitters to interrupt/weaken their attacks, and is the primary healer of the group. There's no long range constant attrition-based healing; they resuscitate the fallen with hands-on treatment, effectively the MASH to the Striker bringing in injured.
Adept has the widest view of the battlefield, bombs on the enemy in the back and manipulates the environment to further bolster the team's formation in case they're getting flanked. They're not doing lame shit like buffing dudes with +ATK or whatever, they're putting up areas of denial and defenses. The Adept's big stuff takes a bit to pull off so the frontline needs to hold long enough for the Adept to drop a big bomb.

>>714116806 (OP)
Some kind of support that can change the battlefield itself while providing buffs or generally things that are underused (by giving them power via conditionals) like status effects

>>714116806 (OP)
Depends on your aggro system and your game design. Holy trinity should be your lower priority.

>>714143889
*should not be

>>714116806 (OP)
New superclass that combines all three and is better than any one of them. The original three are still in perfect balance with one another down in trash tier.

>>714142223
what does "strategy and planning" even mean? if I'm playing monster hunter and I take noise bombs to keep monoblos from hiding in the sand is that not planning? is mashing out your optimal rotation in wow really strategy?

>>714116806 (OP)
You can't, The trinity covers all possible forms of gameplay.

>>714116806 (OP)
I make the attack-heal-defender. He's all the roles at the same time and therefore none of them.

>>714144993
Final fantasy 1, Mario rpg, monster hunter. The sliding scale of tactics-to-player skill should be obvious. I’m not saying youre wrong for thinking things like vindictus and monster hunter are RPGs. But I don’t think they are. They’re action games with character customization. Same level of rpg as street fighter alpha 3 is with the isms

>>714116806 (OP)
support
many old school mmos already had this