Revisiting the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG Classes

A feature at Gamasutra examines one of the foundations of many MMORPGs — the idea that class roles within such a game fall into three basic categories: tank, healer, and damage dealer. The article evaluates the pros and cons of such an arrangement and takes a look at some alternatives. "Eliminating specialized roles means that we do away with boxing a class into a single role. Without Tanks, each class would have features that would help them participate in and survive many different encounters like heavy armor, strong avoidance, or some class or magical abilities that allow them to disengage from direct combat. Without specialized DPS, all classes should be able to do damage in order to defeat enemies. Some classes might specialize in damage type, like area of effect (AoE) damage; others might be able to exploit enemy weaknesses, and some might just be good at swinging a sharpened bit of metal in the right direction at a rapid rate. This design isn't just about having each class able to fill any trinity role. MMO combat would feel more dynamic in this system. Every player would have to react to combat events and defend against attacks."

Comments

Despecialization isn't an objective.

[Thanshin]

And my question is: why would you want to do such thing?

If you start with a system based on: Two sides dealing damage to an amount of health, the first to reach o health loses.

You'll reach the roles of:
Dealing the most damage, receiving the least damage, and avoiding reaching the 0.

If you want another set of classes, you'll have to change the system, not the allowed skills.

For example:
- Add one more number to push into the negatives (typically, armor and shield) and you'll have the posibility of creating a class that manipulates that other number (a shield healer of some sort) a class that damages said number (An EMP mage) and a class that endures more damage to said number (A shield...tank).

- Add positional advantage (complex to do in mmorpgs for lag reasons) and you'll have a class that restricts movement, one that gives positional advantage to teammates and one that uses more effectively positional advantage.

etc.

Re:Despecialization isn't an objective.

[ottothecow]

I think the article and most of the comments are missing the main point that enforces the trinity...

The core piece that makes the trinity viable is the tank (or more, the fact that the tank concept is functional).
The entire trinity is allowed to function because one character can get the attention of all of the monsters (or hold the attention of one big monster), leaving the DPS and healer free to go about their ways. I used to play WoW so my experiance speaks mostly to that...a lot of encounters deal more with managing aggro than with the other elements of the fight (and WoW is set up to make this happen). For example, The priest may be able to heal the tank fast enough that he would never die and the DPS may be able to all out kill him with ease but some monsters have very strong attacks and get distracted easily so you focus on things like timing your heals/attacks with the tanks high aggro abilities and using less efficient spells that have a lower threat rating. All classes have abilities meant to play with aggro (often to no effect other than increasing or reducing aggro) and as long as you can keep the right balance, the mobs stay on the tank and the trinity functions.

If you want to break up the trinity, this is the cycle that must be broken...it can't be done with giving jack-of-all trades clsses--people will just min-max them into variations of the trinity. To get rid of the trinity, you need mobs and encounters that don't respect the trinity.

The trinity doesn't hold in most PvP combat because your opponents are smart. When a big warrior charges in, their gut reaction is to throw a couple of blows his way but they will soon realize that that robe-wearing, pale skinned and frail player standing behind him looks like a much easier target...especially if that player is keeping the warrior alive--you know you have to drop the healer no matter how much damage and high aggro abilities the warrior is doling out on you.

Obviously even with "smart" enemies, there will be preferred group compositions (look at WoW arenas) but there will be more variations and more experimentation when the majority of your party can't sit back in the safety created by tankable mobs.

Rock, Scissors, Paper

[bickerdyke]

Rock.
Scissors.
Paper.

Call them by any other name, but thats how you get an ideal game balance.

Fighter, Mage, Archer
Human, Dwarf, Elf
Fire, Water, Air

There's a reason why this simple game is still around after possibly a few hundred years. And everyone knows some variant of it, (acid, well, hammer, chainsaw..... you name it) and also knows that they suck. messing up the balance.

The Trinity

[argStyopa]

It's funny; I played RPGs for a couple of decades or more, and until I got to MMO RPGs, had never really heard the terms tank and dps.

The reason that the MMO genre has devolved to these reductionist archetypes is because MMO gameplay is about one thing and one thing only: doing damage to kill monsters before they kill you. That's it. Pen and paper RPGs have many, many alternative ways to tell stories and player choices.

Few MMOs I've ever heard of offer anything in the way of goals that don't boil down to killing some stuff. Sure, you might be reuniting two warring factions...but never through discussion or negotiation, generally it's about rescuing someone from some monster/prison/boss or bringing them 10 worg hearts (involving killing many more than 10 worgs). Is there ever any possibility that you could sneak into the enemy fortress, steal the Big McGuffin, and get away WITHOUT killing anyone?

If your gameplay can be boiled down to a function including monster health, monster damage, player health, and player damage, you're going to get players naturally 'gaming' the characters to fit that function as efficiently as possible.

Tbh, these definitions need to be dropped.

[unity100]

i just finished dragon age origins. again there was the stereotypical class definitions and mechanic that made little sense.

a 'tank' which is horribly strong enough to stop a dragon by holding a shield, but it suddenly became less effective when you gave him a huge 2 hander to swing around, despite all the strength (in practice) it should have because stopping anything with a shield requires huge strength.

arch demons, strong and smart enough to marshal entire armies stupidly attacking some party member designated as 'tank', and getting its ass spanked. 'threat' my ass.

the forced stupidity that says a ranged class, especially archer/ranger, should be less effective a damage dealer and should have pathetically low range to make melee classes viable. crossbows which were strong enough to punch full plate + chanmail sets of armor from close range to instantly kill knights does 'damage' to them instead. archers are able to only shoot effectively at 42 yards range. as if agincourt has never happened. the feeling of a real ranger/archer which lurks in a forest/area and snipes the enemy from afar without enemy ever being aware of him/her, is nowhere to be found in games, despite they were a common occurrence in real history and is a frequent occurrence in fantasy fiction.

insanely powerful, stupid mage class. press a button, and freeze 10 enemies to sleep or something. spells 'ignore' armor. the 'crowd control' stupidity, which has never existed in any real battle situation, hell even in no legend/lore the earth civilization has had up to this point, including the later fiction works, leave aside ancient legends. pitt a party of 4 against 10 enemies to create 'challenge', and then be obliged to put the stupid 'crowd control' concept into the game. if you were going to let me freeze 8 out of 10 enemies with 'crowd control' and deal with them one by one, why did you put 10 enemies to challenge me in the first place ...

weapon inconsistencies. the hilariously stupid 'dual wield' thing, which does more 'dps' than other weapons. dual wield ... something that has never been a reality or practicality in entire world history, even including the daggers 17th century musketeers used to wield in left hand for extra control and exploiting occasional openings in duels. go 1-2 centuries backwards, and you will find that lighter weapons which can be wielded in one hand couldnt do shit against heavy armor, and every knight either used swords +shield combo or heavy 2 hander mauls or maces to penetrate armor and negate it, if they were not mounted with a lance. yet, for some reason we have this 'damage' dealing dual wielding nonsense in every goddamn game.

stupid classes. a 'bard' class, that noone can say what it practically does. vague lines to distinguish it even the rogue set it is supposed to belong. 'sings and entrances enemies'. really ? i mean, really ? you sing, and you entrance a demon with your song and freeze it. but isnt that definition of some kind of magic ?

stealth nonsense. going invisible in broad daylight in open field and moving towards an enemy and 'ambushing' it. total hilarity. and that's despite the success Thief series had in gaming industry. they still didnt wake up to the fact that more realism means more excitement for the player.

no flexibility. you HAVE to have a tank, a healer, a controller and a damage dealer. the same old shit everywhere, every game. no variation. no room for an all melee warband or all archer bandit squad. you need to rinse and repeat the same ancient, derelict format in every game. no room for error too - you have to increase tank's defenses, resistances so that it will hold the insanely stupid archdemons, you have to get cc spells for your mage so that it will be able to negate 8 out of 10 enemies you are presented for 'challenge'.

and the 'dungeon' concept. it was fun back in 1980s, but its not fun anymore. fighting and killing 13182356216 random mobs and 2 mini bosses and a major boss at the end o

Re:So get rid of healing

[wtbname]

Ahem.

http://tf2wiki.net/wiki/Medic
http://quakewarswiki.net/wiki/Medic

Plenty more where those came from...

So by "of course" you mean, "of course i don't really know anything about the subject, but I'm going to run my yapper anyways."

Oh right, slashdot...