SWTOR

[Lantyssa]

AC's aren't the same as switching from Arcane Spec to Frost Spec like a Mage.  It's more like switching from a Mage to a Warlock.

Druids.  Paladins.  To a lesser extent Warriors, DKs and Priests.

[luckton]

The only good reason I can offer for putting AC switching behind a high barrier (say, a few days of money farming) is that if it's too easy to switch, pretty soon players will end up feeling required to reclass for certain missions, or to join this week's raid.

Apart from that I couldn't care less whether you change your Mage to a Warlock and back every other day. Just don't force me into doing it.

That's the thing though...BW might not force you, but guilds will.  I'm down with the philosophy that you shouldn't be able to change from a Mage to a Warlock, but a Mage, Warlock, any class has their choice of talent pools.  Give me the ability to change up my Scoundrel from a healer to a DPS on-the-fly to suit the situation better.  No sense in denying the option when precedence has been set and the 'hard-coded' logic doesn't hold water anymore.

[Surlyboi]

Or set encounters so that you don't need to have specific "specs" in the first place. More than one way to skin a cat and all that shit.

Oh wait, that's too hard.

[Ingmar]

Or set encounters so that you don't need to have specific "specs" in the first place. More than one way to skin a cat and all that shit.

Oh wait, that's too hard.

Actually it isn't just hard, it is pretty much impossible. You can design encounters so any group can finish them, sure, but even if you do that they'll always be easier with some specific configuration - unless you make them so easy they're trivial for anyone, which would be the lamest possible choice.

[Surlyboi]

Why? Fuck the trinity. Fuck the need for a healer/tank/dps combo. It's always been the stupidest convention added to MMOs and it betrays the goddamn point of playing.

[Merusk]

Even if you do that, there will still be optimal groups for defeating encounters, unless every class has every ability.. in which case you have one class.

[Malakili]

Why? Fuck the trinity. Fuck the need for a healer/tank/dps combo. It's always been the stupidest convention added to MMOs and it betrays the goddamn point of playing.

Whats your suggestion for a non-trinity based group combat system that is actually fun?  You can go the "fuck everything" route like Diablo in which everything can be soloed and added players just jack up the HP and every man for themselves more or less.  Which is fine really, but if you actually want the multiplayer part to matter beyond just friends killing shit for fun, you've got to do SOMETHING to make the group matter.

If your solution is just the Diablo method of multiplayer, then just wait for it and buy it.

[Amaron]

Or set encounters so that you don't need to have specific "specs" in the first place. More than one way to skin a cat and all that shit.

Oh wait, that's too hard.

The high end raid guilds throw a fit if the content isn't rigid "do this, do that".   Blizzard really does think their raiding is an eSport.

[Sjofn]

The thing is, you CAN do those raids with suboptimal set-ups, but it's harder, and people don't like making things harder for themselves than it has to be. Even if the difference is objectively pretty small.

[Ingmar]

Why? Fuck the trinity. Fuck the need for a healer/tank/dps combo. It's always been the stupidest convention added to MMOs and it betrays the goddamn point of playing.

It has nothing to do with the trinity. As long as different characters can do different things, it will always be easiest with a particular combination.

[Amaron]

You can make it impossible to have an optimal setup though.   Start putting in random encounter mechanics and "optimal" is suddenly different depending on what the raid throws at you.   It would also possibly be far more interesting because you'd have to think and react.   The "problem" is someone might have a chance of getting an easier encounter.   Certain types get their panties in a twist at such a horrifying outcome.

[Nebu]

Whats your suggestion for a non-trinity based group combat system that is actually fun? 

Seems to me that the current 4 person mechanic will just be tank/dps/healer/utility until groups get to a point in gear progression where the utility role will be replaced by a second dps toon.

Couldn't you just make everyone responsible for healing themself?  Healing and dps would become a sliding scale and aggro management would then generate a carefully choreographed dance of people in the party balancing their health and damage.  Of course, you have to retune bosses/encounters the moment you abandon the tank/healer/dps focus.  

I think the reason that the tank/healer focus is such a great starting point is because it's easy to build a team around two key components.  A good healer/tank duo can make up for weaknesses in other areas.  It provides a lot of wiggle room in games that require players to PUG in order to complete objectives.  

[Surlyboi]

You can make it impossible to have an optimal setup though.   Start putting in random encounter mechanics and "optimal" is suddenly different depending on what the raid throws at you.   It would also possibly be far more interesting because you'd have to think and react.   The "problem" is someone might have a chance of getting an easier encounter.   Certain types get their panties in a twist at such a horrifying outcome.

That.

[Nebu]

You can make it impossible to have an optimal setup though.   Start putting in random encounter mechanics and "optimal" is suddenly different depending on what the raid throws at you.   It would also possibly be far more interesting because you'd have to think and react.   The "problem" is someone might have a chance of getting an easier encounter.   Certain types get their panties in a twist at such a horrifying outcome.

I think the difficulty here lies in the fact that the default response from the playerbase is almost always more dps.  If you had the dps in WoW and Rift, you didn't need the utility.  You saw what happened when this changed in Cataclysm... the playerbase revolted 

[Malakili]

 Healing and dps would become a sliding scale and aggro management would then generate a carefully choreographed dance of people in the party balancing their health and damage.  Of course, you have to retune bosses/encounters the moment you abandon the tank/healer/dps focus.  

This is just basically Diablo.   Its every man for themselves and a free for all.  Why is this carefully choreographed, unless you are suggesting every single boss needs to be passed off in aggrro before you run out of self heals or something.  I dunno, passing off aggro boss fights aren't particularly great.

[Sjofn]

You can make it impossible to have an optimal setup though.   Start putting in random encounter mechanics and "optimal" is suddenly different depending on what the raid throws at you.   It would also possibly be far more interesting because you'd have to think and react.   The "problem" is someone might have a chance of getting an easier encounter.   Certain types get their panties in a twist at such a horrifying outcome.

That would never work because people are fucking terrible at thinking on their feet. Trust me, I've done raids with people who you think this "fuck the trinity, fuck optimal raid builds" shit would help, and the worst possible fucking thing would be to make it impossible to "optimize" because the encounter is random. The danger would NOT be "someone might get an easier encounter" the problem would be "oh shit, it decided to give us Oz for opera and we don't have a warlock today and we have about TEN SECONDS to figure out how to do it with this group or we'll wipe."

[Velorath]

You can make it impossible to have an optimal setup though.   Start putting in random encounter mechanics and "optimal" is suddenly different depending on what the raid throws at you.   It would also possibly be far more interesting because you'd have to think and react.   The "problem" is someone might have a chance of getting an easier encounter.   Certain types get their panties in a twist at such a horrifying outcome.

In that case though, doesn't the optimal setup become having the widest range of abilities as possible to account for as many random mechanics as you can?  In other words, now instead of needing a particular setup of Tank, Healer, and DPS, you need to make sure at least one person can tank, one can heal, one is the dps, one has access to resist buffs you might need if certain enemies pop up this time, one has spells that this particular mob is weak against, etc... 

[Merusk]

You can make it impossible to have an optimal setup though.   Start putting in random encounter mechanics and "optimal" is suddenly different depending on what the raid throws at you.   It would also possibly be far more interesting because you'd have to think and react.   The "problem" is someone might have a chance of getting an easier encounter.   Certain types get their panties in a twist at such a horrifying outcome.

That would never work because people are fucking terrible at thinking on their feet. Trust me, I've done raids with people who you think this "fuck the trinity, fuck optimal raid builds" shit would help, and the worst possible fucking thing would be to make it impossible to "optimize" because the encounter is random. The danger would NOT be "someone might get an easier encounter" the problem would be "oh shit, it decided to give us Oz for opera and we don't have a warlock today and we have about TEN SECONDS to figure out how to do it with this group or we'll wipe."

After a few months of which your game will tank because all the casual players realize they'll never have a chance, decide "this is bullshit because this is entertainment not life fulfillment" and go elsewhere.

So yeah. You can totally do that if you want to have a game that 1) has to have an incredibly small dev budget or charge a shitload per month and 2) are ok with it being full of only uber raiders and elitist types, the sort of which are usually mocked, derided and spat-upon on these boards.

Also, let me just say those promoting it are full of shit because they wouldn't touch that game with a 10' pole. First because of the community, second because "it takes too much time to do anything."

Return to "players don't know what they want." Round 10k.

[Fordel]

You can make it impossible to have an optimal setup though.   Start putting in random encounter mechanics and "optimal" is suddenly different depending on what the raid throws at you.   It would also possibly be far more interesting because you'd have to think and react.   The "problem" is someone might have a chance of getting an easier encounter.   Certain types get their panties in a twist at such a horrifying outcome.

In that case though, doesn't the optimal setup become having the widest range of abilities as possible to account for as many random mechanics as you can?  In other words, now instead of needing a particular setup of Tank, Healer, and DPS, you need to make sure at least one person can tank, one can heal, one is the dps, one has access to resist buffs you might need if certain enemies pop up this time, one has spells that this particular mob is weak against, etc... 

Yes, that or just pure burn. Kill it before random becomes a problem.

[Sky]

I think the reward for being the first guild on the server to defeat the toughest raid should be having all their characters deleted. Same with "first to 50".

[Fordel]

Only if they make giant statues of each character in the capital!

[Malakili]

Only if they make giant statues of each character in the capital!

Fair trade.

[Surlyboi]

I think the reward for being the first guild on the server to defeat the toughest raid should be having all their characters deleted. Same with "first to 50".

Yeah, but that would just prompt them to race another character to 50 and beat the next toughest raid. I'd suggest sterilization, but let's be honest, most of these types will never get laid anyway.

[luckton]

Somehow, I seriously doubt that BW would continue the mantra of "developing content that only 5% of player base will actually see 'and' be able to overcome."  With so much riding on the 'story'-column-thing, I can't imagine that they'd make the end-game stuff so hard that it will follow WoW's progression of "the hardcore's get to see the end-game this patch, everybody else gets it next patch when we dumb down the old stuff because of newer, harder stuff."

That said, the current stance of locking everyone into a role at 50 a la vanilla/BC WoW doesn't give me a lot of hope right now...but we still do have a couple months, right?

[Nebu]

That said, the current stance of locking everyone into a role at 50 a la vanilla/BC WoW doesn't give me a lot of hope right now...but we still do have a couple months, right?

Don't forget the "miracle patch" that will fix everything within the first 6 weeks after release! 

[luckton]

That said, the current stance of locking everyone into a role at 50 a la vanilla/BC WoW doesn't give me a lot of hope right now...but we still do have a couple months, right?

Don't forget the "miracle patch" that will fix everything within the first 6 weeks after release! 

If EA's QA team has anything to say about it, it'll be more like 6 months 

[Amaron]

That would never work because people are fucking terrible at thinking on their feet.

They're terrible at reacting and thinking quickly yes.  I wasn't really talking about anything that requires fast thought.   I meant more along the lines of "Oh he's casting X this fight so I need to do Y at some point".   Really the problem with Cataclysm is that it's too twitchy.   The action types will boggle at that but WoW has always had a very high physical reaction skill cap (in raids) which the casual types just can't deal with.   People who weren't weaned on Metroid aren't dumb they just literally can't get out of the fire in time.    They don't have that "skill" and they aren't interested in developing it.  It's no surprise that the minute they brought that stuff into heroics in Cata that the player base blew up.

[Lantyssa]

Couldn't you just make everyone responsible for healing themself?  Healing and dps would become a sliding scale and aggro management would then generate a carefully choreographed dance of people in the party balancing their health and damage.  Of course, you have to retune bosses/encounters the moment you abandon the tank/healer/dps focus.  

I think I heard Guild Wars 2 calling.

[Malakili]

That would never work because people are fucking terrible at thinking on their feet.

They're terrible at reacting and thinking quickly yes.  I wasn't really talking about anything that requires fast thought.   I meant more along the lines of "Oh he's casting X this fight so I need to do Y at some point".   Really the problem with Cataclysm is that it's too twitchy.   The action types will boggle at that but WoW has always had a very high physical reaction skill cap (in raids) which the casual types just can't deal with.   People who weren't weaned on Metroid aren't dumb they just literally can't get out of the fire in time.    They don't have that "skill" and they aren't interested in developing it.  It's no surprise that the minute they brought that stuff into heroics in Cata that the player base blew up.

If your player base isn't willing to develop skill(s) your gameplay is going to be stagnant no matter how many random abilities a boss chooses from.  I'm not even talking practice outside of games, do random stuff, etc.  I'm just talking about dying to something and thinking, gee, I could have done that better and then next time just trying to do it better.    

EDIT: It seems that people ARE willing to learn new mechanics, boss fights etc, obviously.  It seems like there are limits on it though. 

[Sjofn]

That would never work because people are fucking terrible at thinking on their feet.

They're terrible at reacting and thinking quickly yes.  I wasn't really talking about anything that requires fast thought.   I meant more along the lines of "Oh he's casting X this fight so I need to do Y at some point".  

That is thinking and reacting and unless you make it so slow to matter that the "just burn it down before it matters" strategy is the one to go with, people will suck at it, especially if they don't know WHICH thing they're going to have to react to until the fight starts.

People don't want that. They want something they can practice at and get better at, and then once they've learned the dance steps, be able to dance through without too much trouble. WotLK showed that. The problem was Cataclysm made it TOO annoying to do, and too hard to get through with your friends that insist on speccing like a special snowflake instead of optimizing for DPS or whatever. WotLK with those same friends, it would be harder than "normal," but you could still do it. My guild was fucking king at shitty raid composition. Adding in random stuff to think about would've made things much worse.

[Lantyssa]

If your player base isn't willing to develop skill(s) your gameplay is going to be stagnant no matter how many random abilities a boss chooses from.  I'm not even talking practice outside of games, do random stuff, etc.  I'm just talking about dying to something and thinking, gee, I could have done that better and then next time just trying to do it better.    

EDIT: It seems that people ARE willing to learn new mechanics, boss fights etc, obviously.  It seems like there are limits on it though. 

The problem is putting people into a situation where they have to observe, think, and avoid the fire at the same time.

I am unable to do that in a game like WoW.  It just moves too fast.  If I can observe a fight from a safe location, then I can think about what needs to be done.  (And fuck needing to watch an out-of-game video to learn a fight.  You've lost my interest the second that is required.)  If the penalty for a wipe weren't so ludicrous, then it'd be fine, too.  Deus Ex 3 for example, if I die I'm back into trying within fifteen seconds, not after ten minutes of running, prep, and ready checks.  It gets annoying enough after failing a few times even then.

Think or React.  Only a small number of people can do both at the same time.  Choose one if you want a wide audience to participate.

[Velorath]

Couldn't you just make everyone responsible for healing themself?  Healing and dps would become a sliding scale and aggro management would then generate a carefully choreographed dance of people in the party balancing their health and damage.  Of course, you have to retune bosses/encounters the moment you abandon the tank/healer/dps focus.  

I think I heard Guild Wars 2 calling.

Guild Wars 2 still has the trinity.  It's just in this case it requires each character to fill multiple roles, which will be great for some people and probably less so for the Elementalist who wants to DPS when the rest of his group wants him to drop down some healing rain.

[UnSub]

As long as the only way of defeating a mob is to reduce their HP to zero, you will have the Trinity.

There isn't anything to replace the Trinity with under the above situation, nor would SWOR be the one to try.

[Amaron]

If your player base isn't willing to develop skill(s) your gameplay is going to be stagnant no matter how many random abilities a boss chooses from.  I'm not even talking practice outside of games, do random stuff, etc.  I'm just talking about dying to something and thinking, gee, I could have done that better and then next time just trying to do it better.    

Learning to not stand in fire and practicing so much that you actually have the reflexes to get out of the 1-shot kill mechanics are two different things.  Plus there's the issue that on/off skills are horrible.   Ideally you want things which have a gentle ratio between ability and the power that ability gives.   That's the problem with catering to the twitch crowd in a serious way.   They don't really care about how playable something is for normal people. 

That is thinking and reacting and unless you make it so slow to matter that the "just burn it down before it matters" strategy is the one to go with, people will suck at it, especially if they don't know WHICH thing they're going to have to react to until the fight starts.

Just because a mechanic allows you to take your time and think doesn't mean you can ignore it.   You're assuming reflexive difficulty which I'm actually saying should be toned down big time.   They'd actually suck a lot less in such a system.

[Sheepherder]

The decision on Blizzard's part to add a shitton of random elements to playing your class correctly which you have to babysit while simultaneously cranking up the number of one-shot mechanics was as ill considered as any other one-two cock punch to the guys paying your bills.