Sorry - has nothing to do with solo-friendly (that is a red herring argument). It has to do with the AI getting more complex with mobs and the set roles of the Trinity being limiting (play-wise for players). There is noting inherently wrong with the Trinity except players do prefer what is more comfortable to them rather than trying something new. Are you serious or just joking.. Smart AI isn't such a smart excuse.. First, lets talk about who or what has a smart AI.. Do you think a wolf, bear or tiger have a CLUE what or who the healer is? As a Ranger if I have my bear pet mauling another bear, that bear is CLUELESS to who I am or what I'm doing.. That bear will ONLY concentrate on the object in it's face.. Now, lets assume you are a smart human under the same circumstances.. You might know I'm the bear's master, but NO way you're getting close to me to do anything about it.. My bear is maul you and hamstring every step.. You'll be dead before you get close to me.. The only time you can justify a smart AI is when you have a group of intelligent mobs that can add better then 2+2..
The trinity was of a time when the MOB AI was limited (all they could do was increase XP of the mob or give them one strong attack, buff, debuff, etc). AI's can be more complex and there are fights in GW2, for example in higher level Fractals, where a Trinity group would be absolutely wiped out with one hit.
It has everything to do with solo friendly class, to deny that is just being dishonest.. When you remove the role designed game you end up with a homogenized dps hybrid set up.. Thing is.. you can keep the trinity and still have it solo friendly, just that the devs didn't know how to add 2+2.. Both styles can co-exist if you look outside the box..
Sorry - has nothing to do with solo-friendly (that is a red herring argument). It has to do with the AI getting more complex with mobs and the set roles of the Trinity being limiting (play-wise for players). There is noting inherently wrong with the Trinity except players do prefer what is more comfortable to them rather than trying something new. Are you serious or just joking.. Smart AI isn't such a smart excuse.. First, lets talk about who or what has a smart AI.. Do you think a wolf, bear or tiger have a CLUE what or who the healer is? As a Ranger if I have my bear pet mauling another bear, that bear is CLUELESS to who I am or what I'm doing.. That bear will ONLY concentrate on the object in it's face.. Now, lets assume you are a smart human under the same circumstances.. You might know I'm the bear's master, but NO way you're getting close to me to do anything about it.. My bear is maul you and hamstring every step.. You'll be dead before you get close to me.. The only time you can justify a smart AI is when you have a group of intelligent mobs that can add better then 2+2..
The trinity was of a time when the MOB AI was limited (all they could do was increase XP of the mob or give them one strong attack, buff, debuff, etc). AI's can be more complex and there are fights in GW2, for example in higher level Fractals, where a Trinity group would be absolutely wiped out with one hit.
It has everything to do with solo friendly class, to deny that is just being dishonest.. When you remove the role designed game you end up with a homogenized dps hybrid set up.. Thing is.. you can keep the trinity and still have it solo friendly, just that the devs didn't know how to add 2+2.. Both styles can co-exist if you look outside the box..
You're creating a strawman argument: People are not talking about dropping roles, they're talking about dropping the holy trinity.
And you are wrong. Games like DDO and GW1 have strong roles, but are still solo friendly due to available AI controlled henchmen/mercenaries.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by KBishop If monsters had true human AI, it wouldn't be fun, you know why? Because the AI would go directly for healers first, spam their strongest aoe and CC, and completely forego tanks. It wouldn't just be chaotic, it'd be unplayable.
You've just described PvP. Is PvP "unplayable"?
no because PvP doesn't consist of raid bosses that can 1 shot a healer
Sorry - has nothing to do with solo-friendly (that is a red herring argument). It has to do with the AI getting more complex with mobs and the set roles of the Trinity being limiting (play-wise for players). There is noting inherently wrong with the Trinity except players do prefer what is more comfortable to them rather than trying something new. Are you serious or just joking.. Smart AI isn't such a smart excuse.. First, lets talk about who or what has a smart AI.. Do you think a wolf, bear or tiger have a CLUE what or who the healer is? As a Ranger if I have my bear pet mauling another bear, that bear is CLUELESS to who I am or what I'm doing.. That bear will ONLY concentrate on the object in it's face.. Now, lets assume you are a smart human under the same circumstances.. You might know I'm the bear's master, but NO way you're getting close to me to do anything about it.. My bear is maul you and hamstring every step.. You'll be dead before you get close to me.. The only time you can justify a smart AI is when you have a group of intelligent mobs that can add better then 2+2..
The trinity was of a time when the MOB AI was limited (all they could do was increase XP of the mob or give them one strong attack, buff, debuff, etc). AI's can be more complex and there are fights in GW2, for example in higher level Fractals, where a Trinity group would be absolutely wiped out with one hit.
It has everything to do with solo friendly class, to deny that is just being dishonest.. When you remove the role designed game you end up with a homogenized dps hybrid set up.. Thing is.. you can keep the trinity and still have it solo friendly, just that the devs didn't know how to add 2+2.. Both styles can co-exist if you look outside the box..
I agree that there is room in the genre for Trinity and non trinity games.
I would also agree that to date no one has come up with a better PvE group combat dynamic than the Trinity in MMORPGs.
That doesn't mean it isn't past time the industry tried to come up with better solutions or shouldn't try. Part of any solution is making MOBs that can create and respond to more complex interactions than the simple Trinity mechanic.
Whether EQN will be the first to manage it or just another step or misstep on the way to it is yet to be seen.
If monsters had true human AI, it wouldn't be fun, you know why? Because the AI would go directly for healers first, spam their strongest aoe and CC, and completely forego tanks. It wouldn't just be chaotic, it'd be unplayable.
Do you know in which game that wouldn't be a problem at all? In one that doesn't have healers or tanks ...
It would still be a problem but it would be less so. Many games where the computer has a 'trump' card and consistantly uses it are considered to be rigged, because the computer has an IWIN button that you can't circumvent.
Think of it this way. Lets say you have some raid boss with 3 attacks that each do 50% of your hp. In scripted AI, the boss would probably do them once ever 30seconds - minute so that you have time to at least recover. In a REAL AI, any smart person(and smart AI) would simply spam those abilities in rapid succession so that you'd be dead. Of course you could put other restrictions on the boss such as "They can't use these abilities but once every 30 seconds" but there are still other things they could and probably would do, such as running away when battle is getting to heated, targeting the most threatening person (healers first, then top dps), or use CC in tandem with other abilities, or hell getting any and every creature within the zone to simply sit next to it so that they turtle.
Then you place restriction after restriction such as "The boss cannot run, period" or "The boss will target the person with an arbitrary number" (threat), or "The boss cannot rally other enemies to help defend it" and so on, until you have *drum roll* scripted AI.
People may not like it,but I honestly could care less.
I point the finger straight at GW2 and it's fans.See it seems people want to think that newer mmo's need to be super solo friendly and screw everyone else,it's me me me.I don't care what other people do in the raid.it's about me and only me.
Thus mmorpg's now days are a watered down version of what they once was.People rush to lvl cap and then bitch about nothing to do.An mmorpg years ago wasn't about cap,it was the whole of the game experience.
Having a trinity worked and promoted social interaction well before one entered the battlefield.Not some dumbed down version that's like,hey just run and join a group and heal yourself while you fight,or dps or tank.Please,it's a disgrace to the genre.
Sometimes change can be good,but doing away with trinity is not the answer,it's stupid!
Some day I'm going to put a sword through your eye and out the back of your skull!
Meh, I've come close to despising the thing. In most games it's just a prettier version of whack-a-mole. The DPS hits his buttons at the same time, the healer does so with a little more thought, and the tank just hopes he can stay alive. Everyone is so into their role that some guy went through dungeons in WoW with barely anyone noticing that he wasn't doing anything. For as much grief GW2 gets(from people who do not play), I guarantee you that is not happening. There is no half-asleep mode in it's 5 man encounters.
Sorry - has nothing to do with solo-friendly (that is a red herring argument). It has to do with the AI getting more complex with mobs and the set roles of the Trinity being limiting (play-wise for players). There is noting inherently wrong with the Trinity except players do prefer what is more comfortable to them rather than trying something new.
The trinity was of a time when the MOB AI was limited (all they could do was increase XP of the mob or give them one strong attack, buff, debuff, etc). AI's can be more complex and there are fights in GW2, for example in higher level Fractals, where a Trinity group would be absolutely wiped out with one hit.
Please name one game that has improved the AI, they have been removing the trinity since guild wars 2. I have yet to see this new and improved AI that warrents it.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
The Trinity exists and has existed since before MMORPGs. You can go back to Pen and Paper games. You don't HAVE to have a tank, healer, and someone who can bring the pain, but if you don't have each of these roles, your group is inherently limited in what it can achieve. The Trinity exists because specialization is generally superior to non-specialization.
This has been covered already. Yes, support/defense/offense exists in most combat scenarios. You're confusing roles with a taunt-based combat system.
Nope, I'm not confused at all.
I know you like Guild Wars, but I thought the class design and structure of the game was horrendous. It was boring to no end.
I made no statement regarding a combat system. You can have a widely different combat system while maintain class roles and maintaining the Trinity. Just because you have a Tank, does not mean you have to have a taunt based system. That's utterly false. DnD has had classes falling into the category for decades without taunting based combat. Your premise is flawed.
Eh... Tank can exist two ways: Either it uses a taunt system, or it exploits an underdeveloped AI. Do you remember Baldur's Gate? -In that game, there was no taunt system and the monsters would attack the first thing they saw. Thing is, they never switched targets so you always put your tank forward to "get aggro" and then proceed to kill the mobs with your other characters.
Bioware didn't change the AI until Throne of Bhaal. It made the game extremely easy - much like other trinity games.
The class design and structure in GW1 was well ahead of its time, but I get if if you come from a background of only knowing the trinity and nothing else, then it might look a bit confusing and chaotic at times. For me, we never had a "tank" when we played PnP RPGs, and I never liked the mechanic in computer RPGs (including MMOs), so GW1 felt like an oasis of good combat in the middle of a vast desert.
The trinity makes combat formulaic and trivial. Its like a dance routine, always the same. Things can get interesting only if somebody makes a mistake. And these games are not very hard anyway so why would you? It doesn't even promote "teamwork" 'cause everyone usually have just one job to do. Thats it. You do your thing, the rest do their thing, and if everybody does their thing well, nobody needs to talk to one another and all encounters are won. Woopty doo!
There's plenty of ways tanking can work other than that. Current DnD uses forced movement, collision / positioning, and opportunity attacks. If you didn't run with a tank and a healer in PnP games, you could make do... provided you stick to certain types of adventures, don't get unlucky rolls, and/or have a GM who rains down magical healing potions like nobody's business.
Non-trinity combat is identical to the trinity combat you describe. It's formulaic and trivial. You do the exact same thing over and over again depending on the AI.
And you clearly haven't done hard raiding. Nobody needs to talk to one another? LOL!
The trinity makes combat formulaic and trivial. Its like a dance routine, always the same. Things can get interesting only if somebody makes a mistake. And these games are not very hard anyway so why would you? It doesn't even promote "teamwork" 'cause everyone usually have just one job to do. Thats it. You do your thing, the rest do their thing, and if everybody does their thing well, nobody needs to talk to one another and all encounters are won. Woopty doo!
What on earth is this none sense - I cant even think of a team sport where no one has a role to play. Sure they can play out of their role at times but essentially they have roles and in fact have usually been selected based on their specialty.
You are a prime example of what's silly about this argument - its obvious you haven't done anything remotely hard because if you had, say heroic Ragnaros in Firelands, you would know how difficult and challenging every persons role can be. Sure trinity is boring at toddler level but the challenge is for you to get better and rise to the challenge.
The trinity makes combat formulaic and trivial. Its like a dance routine, always the same. Things can get interesting only if somebody makes a mistake. And these games are not very hard anyway so why would you? It doesn't even promote "teamwork" 'cause everyone usually have just one job to do. Thats it. You do your thing, the rest do their thing, and if everybody does their thing well, nobody needs to talk to one another and all encounters are won. Woopty doo!
What on earth is this none sense - I cant even think of a team sport where no one has a role to play. Sure they can play out of their role at times but essentially they have roles and in fact have usually been selected based on their specialty.
You are a prime example of what's silly about this argument - its obvious you haven't done anything remotely hard because if you had, say heroic Ragnaros in Firelands, you would know how difficult and challenging every persons role can be. Sure trinity is boring at toddler level but the challenge is for you to get better and rise to the challenge.
that's kind of missing the point.
You can add a bunch of interesting mechanics to the encounter to shake things up, but in the end the combat is still formulaic. Tanks tank, healers heal and damage dealers deal damage. Thats it. At best, they will have other things to do that aren't their designed role like moving locations to prevent wipes or something, but even taking out adds or shooting down orbs is STILL dpsing. Thats the problem with the trinity, is that it locks people to a specific role, and gives them only so much wiggle room before you are just having them do the same thing over different skins
What on earth is this none sense - I cant even think of a team sport where no one has a role to play. Sure they can play out of their role at times but essentially they have roles and in fact have usually been selected based on their specialty.
You are a prime example of what's silly about this argument - its obvious you haven't done anything remotely hard because if you had, say heroic Ragnaros in Firelands, you would know how difficult and challenging every persons role can be. Sure trinity is boring at toddler level but the challenge is for you to get better and rise to the challenge.
I think we all agree that people needs to work together to beat a hard opponent, no matter if you prefer trinity combat or not.
My problem with trinity games is more that they support skill rotations and you need to think less in a game where you have one single thing to do in combat..
As I see it is trinity the first working group dynamics MMOs had (Meridian 59 had it already in 1996) but that doesn't make it the ultimate one. We need some new mechanics that are more dynamic while still rewards players for working together.
That doesn't mean all trinity combat fights are easy of course but as soon as you fight something less than at the highest difficulty you get people who macro or rotate skills and all mobs can't be high level raid bosses.
In combat you must have a number of things that needs to be done, and they needs to be done in co-operation but I don't see why it have to be decided who does what even before the combat starts.
It is true that the alternatives to the trinity needs more work still though but the trinity have been improved for 17 years and I think with some time a few of those will most likely be far better in the long run.
The trinity makes combat formulaic and trivial. Its like a dance routine, always the same. Things can get interesting only if somebody makes a mistake. And these games are not very hard anyway so why would you? It doesn't even promote "teamwork" 'cause everyone usually have just one job to do. Thats it. You do your thing, the rest do their thing, and if everybody does their thing well, nobody needs to talk to one another and all encounters are won. Woopty doo!
What on earth is this none sense - I cant even think of a team sport where no one has a role to play. Sure they can play out of their role at times but essentially they have roles and in fact have usually been selected based on their specialty.
You are a prime example of what's silly about this argument - its obvious you haven't done anything remotely hard because if you had, say heroic Ragnaros in Firelands, you would know how difficult and challenging every persons role can be. Sure trinity is boring at toddler level but the challenge is for you to get better and rise to the challenge.
You're right with the team sport idea. Every team sport is defined roles. One of my favorite sports is basketball. PGs control the offense, SGs/SFs usually can shoot the ball, Big men get rebounds, score in the paint, defend.
In this case the PG would be the healer. Assisting the other team and such. Like Chris Paul. If the PG sucks and can't get his teammates the ball then the team doesn't last long. Turnovers, bad decisions, broken plays, etc.
SG/SFs are like the DPS. Think Kobe Bryant. They usually do the most damage on offense, can usually score in a variety of ways.
PF would be like off tank and Center the Tank. Hard for a team to go anywhere without good big men.
But see...the roles in ANY team sport are not so static. While Chris Paul is the prototypical PG (healer) you have a guy like Derrick Rose or Westbrook that are not. They will willingly score the ball and a guy like Westbrook will even deny his teammates the ball so that he can score. He's still very effective though.
While SGs and SFs usually do a lot of the scoring in the NBA...a guy like Lebron is not the prototypical SF. He can assist, bring the ball up, rebound, defend the paint, score in the paint...do it all basically.
While big men are usually relied on to grab rebounds and defend the paint...Dirk Nowitzki doesn't. He rather shoot and score on the perimeter. We could do this with every team sport. Roles are not static.
So you see, what EQN and other games are trying to do is make the roles less static than what they are. So that a healer could still heal but also play a backup damage role...or perhaps he could still just be a full on healer. At least that is what I took from it.
I think GW2 did a pretty good job of it. Just like basketball everyone scores(DPS) but everyone also has to do something else. Sullpy buffs, remove conditions, CC, etc etc...
There's plenty of ways tanking can work other than that. Current DnD uses forced movement, collision / positioning, and opportunity attacks. If you didn't run with a tank and a healer in PnP games, you could make do... provided you stick to certain types of adventures, don't get unlucky rolls, and/or have a GM who rains down magical healing potions like nobody's business.
Non-trinity combat is identical to the trinity combat you describe. It's formulaic and trivial. You do the exact same thing over and over again depending on the AI.
And you clearly haven't done hard raiding. Nobody needs to talk to one another? LOL!
Positioning and attacks of opportuny do not make a "tank" nothing forces the enemy to attack anyone. But if you insisted that is still tanking (which it really isn't) you would have to concede that any melee fighter in GW1 was also a tank, because that is precisely how melee fighters worked in GW1: bodyblocking, positioning, pressure & harassment.
No... The tank role is to make yourself as hard to kill as possible and then fool the AI to attack you. Frontline fighters in many games such as GW1, D&D etc. do not follow this criteria. Healing spells, in D&D, required the healer to touch his/her target, which could easily compromise the healer in melee range. For this reason, healing was reserved for emergencies only. Drinking potions in melee would also provoke an attack of opportunity. How is this relevant to your argument? Have you even played D&D?
Non-trinity combat is far more varied than trinity combat, don't be silly. It is only limited by encounter and monster design. It also has more resemblance to PvP, and bringing PvE and PvP metagames closer together would help in a number of classic issues such as "wolves hunting the sheep" in OPvP games or PvP and PvE skill/class balance.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
You can add a bunch of interesting mechanics to the encounter to shake things up, but in the end the combat is still formulaic. Tanks tank, healers heal and damage dealers deal damage. Thats it. At best, they will have other things to do that aren't their designed role like moving locations to prevent wipes or something, but even taking out adds or shooting down orbs is STILL dpsing. Thats the problem with the trinity, is that it locks people to a specific role, and gives them only so much wiggle room before you are just having them do the same thing over different skins
The same thing is true for any type of combat role. Just because the roles are named different, doesn't mean they are not roles anymore. Of course you can remove all roles and make every class exactly the same as the rest, but I have my doubts that this will make the game more interessting. It's like playing a FPS where you got exactly one weapon.
Or do you know a way to have custom classes without roles?
There's plenty of ways tanking can work other than that. Current DnD uses forced movement, collision / positioning, and opportunity attacks. If you didn't run with a tank and a healer in PnP games, you could make do... provided you stick to certain types of adventures, don't get unlucky rolls, and/or have a GM who rains down magical healing potions like nobody's business.
Non-trinity combat is identical to the trinity combat you describe. It's formulaic and trivial. You do the exact same thing over and over again depending on the AI.
And you clearly haven't done hard raiding. Nobody needs to talk to one another? LOL!
Positioning and attacks of opportuny do not make a "tank" nothing forces the enemy to attack anyone. But if you insisted that is still tanking (which it really isn't) you would have to concede that any melee fighter in GW1 was also a tank, because that is precisely how melee fighters worked in GW1: bodyblocking, positioning, pressure & harassment.
No... The tank role is to make yourself as hard to kill as possible and then fool the AI to attack you. Frontline fighters in many games such as GW1, D&D etc. do not follow this criteria. Healing spells, in D&D, required the healer to touch his/her target, which could easily compromise the healer in melee range. For this reason, healing was reserved for emergencies only. Drinking potions in melee would also provoke an attack of opportunity. How is this relevant to your argument? Have you even played D&D?
Non-trinity combat is far more varied than trinity combat, don't be silly. It is only limited by encounter and monster design. It also has more resemblance to PvP, and bringing PvE and PvP metagames closer together would help in a number of classic issues such as "wolves hunting the sheep" in OPvP games or PvP and PvE skill/class balance.
Positioning, attacks of opportunity, and forced movement do make a tank, provided you have decent hit points and armor class. It's actually similar to what Age of Conan used for PvP tanking. It had very legit PvP tanking. I know all you Trinity people hate agro based tanking, it's not inherently bad. It's just a simplification.
The tank role is to prevent damage from occurring to teammates and soak damage. Period. That's what makes a tank a tank. You are conflating AI scripting and combat mechanics with a class role.
Not all heals required touch in DnD. The big thing though about healing is that there's no way to recover after a fight without it. There's no "click to rest to full health" button unless your playing with house rules.
Trinity combat is far more varied than you give it credit. The problem you really have is the scripting (and probably add ons). People who've done high end raid content in EQ or early WoW raiding before mods, guides, nerfs, and poor design trivialized it will agree. Even after that, some of the WoW raiding has still been extraordinarily difficult. One of the things you Trinity haters typically love to do is look at the current environment and say "it's the Trinity's fault!" It's not. It's content design. It's class homogenization. It's an emphasis on small scale content. Killing Lucifron in early WoW before Decursive, threat meters, boss mods, etc. took more coordination, communication, and on the fly adaptation than pretty much anything I've ever done since.
Bringing PvP and PvE closer together has nothing to do with the Trinity and everything to do with the actual content and combat mechanics. Someone brought up the issue of skill rotations. I agree. They suck. It's bad design. It's not due to the Trinity. It's due to bad design and bad design is a very common problem with the MMOs out there right now.
It really doesn't matter if you want to call every melee character a tank. People are not against that kind of "tank". People are against the AI exploiting tank - the ridiculous taunt mechanics, which often define PvE metagame. The most trivial type of defense there is, is to have one guy soaking damage and another healing him. Its just stupid and boring.
And I'm not going to trust anyone's word on a forum that a game is hard, because Eve Online is supposed to be hard, but it isn't. It is very easy, fairly straight forwad, only thing that would make it feel hard, if you were bad at it. And it is true: 90% of Eve players are just plain bad. I wouldn't be surprised if other games had similar numbers. You get those guys playing some other game like World of Tanks, Battlefield 3 or League of Legends and you'll realize an alarmingly high number of those players are well below average players. Maybe its just the players I know, but they certainly have no business looking down on WoW or any other MMO they deem "casual" or "easymode". I secretly laugh my ass off when they talk on TS how Eve is "hardcore" or whatever.
I've actually played games that don't have the trinity with people who have only known the trinity. Mostly they have significant trouble to understand and adjust to the new combat dynamics. One guy just kept yelling "who's tanking, who's tanking". Worse players are those who insist on being a "healer" playing an Elementalist in GW2. They are so engrained in the trinity they are often unable to let go of it. In the end they just get confused and frustrated and quit. That is precisely where you get these comments "there's no structure, its chaotic" or "its a zergfest".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by Nephelai Originally posted by QuirhidThe trinity makes combat formulaic and trivial. Its like a dance routine, always the same. Things can get interesting only if somebody makes a mistake. And these games are not very hard anyway so why would you? It doesn't even promote "teamwork" 'cause everyone usually have just one job to do. Thats it. You do your thing, the rest do their thing, and if everybody does their thing well, nobody needs to talk to one another and all encounters are won. Woopty doo!
What on earth is this none sense - I cant even think of a team sport where no one has a role to play. Sure they can play out of their role at times but essentially they have roles and in fact have usually been selected based on their specialty.
You are a prime example of what's silly about this argument - its obvious you haven't done anything remotely hard because if you had, say heroic Ragnaros in Firelands, you would know how difficult and challenging every persons role can be. Sure trinity is boring at toddler level but the challenge is for you to get better and rise to the challenge.
I agree with you that the challenge of encountered isn't caused or limited by whether or not trinity combat is used. There are plenty of challenging aspects to combat that uses the trinity style system.
I would say though, that trinity style combat systems tend to be repetitive. If you do a fight once, fail or succeed, it will largely be the same as the next time you run the fight or the last time you run the fight. Changing roles changes your experience of the fight, but the fight itself largely remains the same. I think this is the only "problem" with trinity style combat.
I put problem in quotes because it's not really a problem, it's a preference. I spent a lot of time in Kharazan (sp) in WoW and enjoyed pretty much all of it. The fights didn't change all that much, but it was still interesting and fun.
The fights in Champions Online were pretty fun too though. EQN is doing something different, and that might be fun as well. *shrug* Sorry, just can't get worked up and really pick a side on this issue.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It really doesn't matter if you want to call every melee character a tank. People are not against that kind of "tank". People are against the AI exploiting tank - the ridiculous taunt mechanics, which often define PvE metagame. The most trivial type of defense there is, is to have one guy soaking damage and another healing him. Its just stupid and boring. Did it occur to you that playing a fantasy game with magic isn't real? And why do you think they call warriors wearing plate tanks? UMM because they are built like a REAL tank.. DUH.. We also used to call them meat shields too.. The beauty of the role class system was diversity and options.. PROS and CONS.. Our military over the centuries are built around roles to be performed.. FYI
And I'm not going to trust anyone's word on a forum that a game is hard, because Eve Online is supposed to be hard, but it isn't. It is very easy, fairly straight forwad, only thing that would make it feel hard, if you were bad at it. And it is true: 90% of Eve players are just plain bad. I wouldn't be surprised if other games had similar numbers. You get those guys playing some other game like World of Tanks, Battlefield 3 or League of Legends and you'll realize an alarmingly high number of those players are well below average players. Maybe its just the players I know, but they certainly have no business looking down on WoW or any other MMO they deem "casual" or "easymode". I secretly laugh my ass off when they talk on TS how Eve is "hardcore" or whatever.
I've actually played games that don't have the trinity with people who have only known the trinity. Mostly they have significant trouble to understand and adjust to the new combat dynamics. One guy just kept yelling "who's tanking, who's tanking". Worse players are those who insist on being a "healer" playing an Elementalist in GW2. They are so engrained in the trinity they are often unable to let go of it. In the end they just get confused and frustrated and quit. That is precisely where you get these comments "there's no structure, its chaotic" or "its a zergfest".
Neither method is right or wrong.. they are play style options.. I too have played games like GW2 where it's primary combat is ZERG.. It is what it is.. There are times I'm in the mood for that, times I'm not.. There are times I'm in the mood for FPS combat like Call of Duty, and then there are times I'm in the mood for turn bases and RTS games.. They are ALL good, It baffles me how so many argue over "role" classes are bad.. This is about as crazy as some demanding that McDonald's shouldn't be selling chicken sammies, because burgers are better.. Really?
I think it happened as more and more people realized they were just buying different versions of the same game. Different names for gods and dragons. Once you understood this, you realized you were only switching up the curtains on the same game. Attack big bad. Tank holds aggro by cracking yo mamma jokes. Healer heals the tank. Heck, if anyone else needs a heal, because the DPS didn't move out of fire, or because they didn't wait .4 seconds for the ultimate mamma joke of infinite hate to land on the tank's target, the healer felt put out. And the dps? Wait the .4 seconds the tank needs to establish aggro. Then do the rotation laid out it in the sticky, in your class forum. Oh, and watch the dps meter. All the while the big bad is apparently a slack-jawed simpleton who can't look past hurtful words. Then the party ends and the tank and healer switch to their questing spec.
The same old stupid fights, against the same stupid big bads, all so two classes/builds that are only good for one aspect of the game, have a place in the game.
Neither method is right or wrong.. they are play style options.. I too have played games like GW2 where it's primary combat is ZERG.. It is what it is.. There are times I'm in the mood for that, times I'm not.. There are times I'm in the mood for FPS combat like Call of Duty, and then there are times I'm in the mood for turn bases and RTS games.. They are ALL good, It baffles me how so many argue over "role" classes are bad.. This is about as crazy as some demanding that McDonald's shouldn't be selling chicken sammies, because burgers are better.. Really?
Again, no one is arguing against roles. GW2 has roles, GW1 had roles, LoL has roles, even Counter Strike has roles! They just don't use the trinity. And its the trinity we are against.
You are showing your ignorance and your ingrained mindset by calling any other system "zerg".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Neither method is right or wrong.. they are play style options.. I too have played games like GW2 where it's primary combat is ZERG.. It is what it is.. There are times I'm in the mood for that, times I'm not.. There are times I'm in the mood for FPS combat like Call of Duty, and then there are times I'm in the mood for turn bases and RTS games.. They are ALL good, It baffles me how so many argue over "role" classes are bad.. This is about as crazy as some demanding that McDonald's shouldn't be selling chicken sammies, because burgers are better.. Really?
Again, no one is arguing against roles. GW2 has roles, GW1 had roles, LoL has roles, even Counter Strike has roles! They just don't use the trinity. And its the trinity we are against.
You are showing your ignorance and your ingrained mindset by calling any other system "zerg".
My experience is that many trinity players don't bother to learn any other types of roles, play the easy content and wipe in the hard and then quit saying they got bored. In fact that was surprisingly common in the first GW game, I know many people from Wow that played the 20 levels and then died a lot and finally quit, but they never really bother learn how the group dynamics actually worked and a game becomes really hard then.
You don't really need roles for GW2s open world, you can zerg most things there if you enjoy that (or suck) but once you start the explorable dungeons those people tend to whine a lot, and BTW, you can't revive in dungeons anymore unless the group has wiped and the boss reset.
I blame a lot of the problems on the game though, if GW2 was as hard as it was during the first 2 beta weeks before whiners got it down people would actually have to learn how to play from the start.
But yes, there are group dynamics in most games and while you can ignore those by zerging some content that doesn't mean that the game is easy. Open world content in any modern MMO is so easy that you can ignore group dynamics but that goes for trinity games as well as others.
I said it before: Raise the difficulty of the open world.
Neither method is right or wrong.. they are play style options.. I too have played games like GW2 where it's primary combat is ZERG.. It is what it is.. There are times I'm in the mood for that, times I'm not.. There are times I'm in the mood for FPS combat like Call of Duty, and then there are times I'm in the mood for turn bases and RTS games.. They are ALL good, It baffles me how so many argue over "role" classes are bad.. This is about as crazy as some demanding that McDonald's shouldn't be selling chicken sammies, because burgers are better.. Really?
Again, no one is arguing against roles. GW2 has roles, GW1 had roles, LoL has roles, even Counter Strike has roles! They just don't use the trinity. And its the trinity we are against.
You are showing your ignorance and your ingrained mindset by calling any other system "zerg".
My experience is that many trinity players don't bother to learn any other types of roles, play the easy content and wipe in the hard and then quit saying they got bored. In fact that was surprisingly common in the first GW game, I know many people from Wow that played the 20 levels and then died a lot and finally quit, but they never really bother learn how the group dynamics actually worked and a game becomes really hard then.
You don't really need roles for GW2s open world, you can zerg most things there if you enjoy that (or suck) but once you start the explorable dungeons those people tend to whine a lot, and BTW, you can't revive in dungeons anymore unless the group has wiped and the boss reset.
I blame a lot of the problems on the game though, if GW2 was as hard as it was during the first 2 beta weeks before whiners got it down people would actually have to learn how to play from the start.
But yes, there are group dynamics in most games and while you can ignore those by zerging some content that doesn't mean that the game is easy. Open world content in any modern MMO is so easy that you can ignore group dynamics but that goes for trinity games as well as others.
I said it before: Raise the difficulty of the open world.
Simply having roles does not make it a better system than trinity. I am all for new forms of combat, trinity is a good but stale system. But you need something good to replace it, what we have seen so far over the years has just been one step after another of removing the need for trinity and by extension grouping.
Raising the difficulty in open world at least in certain areas should be the way to go. They need to make MMO's harder in way they can. Not uber leet hardcore, I am not saying that, but MMO's have become the RPG equivalent of a Walkthrough.
The problem of players not being able to group well at later levels because they never had to group at lower levels has been with us for years. But now grouping is a just a content choice, do you want to do a dungeon before you hit top level?
A Zerg is not a combat tactic, style or system. It is the lack of having such a system. In the right gameplay context it can be fun, but if that is all you have then the MMO is lacking.
The "problem" with the (un)Holy Trinity playstyle arose from the game designers building encounters that could only be done a certain way.
Take EQ1 at release;
Warriors did more damage than any other class with the same Stats and Weapons (100% + Str Bonus vs. 75% and no bonus). As well with the first expansion gained a skill that reduced incoming damage to a degree vastly greater than any other class could even dream of.
Clerics, Shaman and Druids got the 'same' Heals spells, except the Shaman and Druids version healed less and were acquired at a later level (ie 360 vs 400iirc). As well, ONLY Clerics got Complete Heal, the best HP/AC buffs, no one else came close.
Enchanters were only second at Slowing a targets attack, but were bar none first at Speeding players attack speeds, Crowd Control, Mana regen, and more.
The Devs there then built encounters that ONLY a Warrior could Tank, ONLY a Cleric could heal, and with the best support as the Enchanter. Others were only fill ins once the group had one each of these.
Later, much later, they completely rebalanced the skills sets such that every class had a unique line and ability they brought to the table.
If a Warrior wasn't available to Tank, a Cleric to Heal, an Enchanter to Buff/Debuff, others could fill in for group play, but... You were much more likely to wipe and have a bad experience. Attainable content was lesser, and Difficult content needed to be avoided.
This is what brought the 'bad taste' to the Trinity model.
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It has everything to do with solo friendly class, to deny that is just being dishonest.. When you remove the role designed game you end up with a homogenized dps hybrid set up.. Thing is.. you can keep the trinity and still have it solo friendly, just that the devs didn't know how to add 2+2.. Both styles can co-exist if you look outside the box..
You're creating a strawman argument: People are not talking about dropping roles, they're talking about dropping the holy trinity.
And you are wrong. Games like DDO and GW1 have strong roles, but are still solo friendly due to available AI controlled henchmen/mercenaries.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
no because PvP doesn't consist of raid bosses that can 1 shot a healer
I agree that there is room in the genre for Trinity and non trinity games.
I would also agree that to date no one has come up with a better PvE group combat dynamic than the Trinity in MMORPGs.
That doesn't mean it isn't past time the industry tried to come up with better solutions or shouldn't try. Part of any solution is making MOBs that can create and respond to more complex interactions than the simple Trinity mechanic.
Whether EQN will be the first to manage it or just another step or misstep on the way to it is yet to be seen.
It would still be a problem but it would be less so. Many games where the computer has a 'trump' card and consistantly uses it are considered to be rigged, because the computer has an IWIN button that you can't circumvent.
Think of it this way. Lets say you have some raid boss with 3 attacks that each do 50% of your hp. In scripted AI, the boss would probably do them once ever 30seconds - minute so that you have time to at least recover. In a REAL AI, any smart person(and smart AI) would simply spam those abilities in rapid succession so that you'd be dead. Of course you could put other restrictions on the boss such as "They can't use these abilities but once every 30 seconds" but there are still other things they could and probably would do, such as running away when battle is getting to heated, targeting the most threatening person (healers first, then top dps), or use CC in tandem with other abilities, or hell getting any and every creature within the zone to simply sit next to it so that they turtle.
Then you place restriction after restriction such as "The boss cannot run, period" or "The boss will target the person with an arbitrary number" (threat), or "The boss cannot rally other enemies to help defend it" and so on, until you have *drum roll* scripted AI.
People may not like it,but I honestly could care less.
I point the finger straight at GW2 and it's fans.See it seems people want to think that newer mmo's need to be super solo friendly and screw everyone else,it's me me me.I don't care what other people do in the raid.it's about me and only me.
Thus mmorpg's now days are a watered down version of what they once was.People rush to lvl cap and then bitch about nothing to do.An mmorpg years ago wasn't about cap,it was the whole of the game experience.
Having a trinity worked and promoted social interaction well before one entered the battlefield.Not some dumbed down version that's like,hey just run and join a group and heal yourself while you fight,or dps or tank.Please,it's a disgrace to the genre.
Sometimes change can be good,but doing away with trinity is not the answer,it's stupid!
Some day I'm going to put a sword through your eye and out the back of your skull!
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Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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Please name one game that has improved the AI, they have been removing the trinity since guild wars 2. I have yet to see this new and improved AI that warrents it.
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There's plenty of ways tanking can work other than that. Current DnD uses forced movement, collision / positioning, and opportunity attacks. If you didn't run with a tank and a healer in PnP games, you could make do... provided you stick to certain types of adventures, don't get unlucky rolls, and/or have a GM who rains down magical healing potions like nobody's business.
Non-trinity combat is identical to the trinity combat you describe. It's formulaic and trivial. You do the exact same thing over and over again depending on the AI.
And you clearly haven't done hard raiding. Nobody needs to talk to one another? LOL!
What on earth is this none sense - I cant even think of a team sport where no one has a role to play. Sure they can play out of their role at times but essentially they have roles and in fact have usually been selected based on their specialty.
You are a prime example of what's silly about this argument - its obvious you haven't done anything remotely hard because if you had, say heroic Ragnaros in Firelands, you would know how difficult and challenging every persons role can be. Sure trinity is boring at toddler level but the challenge is for you to get better and rise to the challenge.
that's kind of missing the point.
You can add a bunch of interesting mechanics to the encounter to shake things up, but in the end the combat is still formulaic. Tanks tank, healers heal and damage dealers deal damage. Thats it. At best, they will have other things to do that aren't their designed role like moving locations to prevent wipes or something, but even taking out adds or shooting down orbs is STILL dpsing. Thats the problem with the trinity, is that it locks people to a specific role, and gives them only so much wiggle room before you are just having them do the same thing over different skins
I think we all agree that people needs to work together to beat a hard opponent, no matter if you prefer trinity combat or not.
My problem with trinity games is more that they support skill rotations and you need to think less in a game where you have one single thing to do in combat..
As I see it is trinity the first working group dynamics MMOs had (Meridian 59 had it already in 1996) but that doesn't make it the ultimate one. We need some new mechanics that are more dynamic while still rewards players for working together.
That doesn't mean all trinity combat fights are easy of course but as soon as you fight something less than at the highest difficulty you get people who macro or rotate skills and all mobs can't be high level raid bosses.
In combat you must have a number of things that needs to be done, and they needs to be done in co-operation but I don't see why it have to be decided who does what even before the combat starts.
It is true that the alternatives to the trinity needs more work still though but the trinity have been improved for 17 years and I think with some time a few of those will most likely be far better in the long run.
You're right with the team sport idea. Every team sport is defined roles. One of my favorite sports is basketball. PGs control the offense, SGs/SFs usually can shoot the ball, Big men get rebounds, score in the paint, defend.
In this case the PG would be the healer. Assisting the other team and such. Like Chris Paul. If the PG sucks and can't get his teammates the ball then the team doesn't last long. Turnovers, bad decisions, broken plays, etc.
SG/SFs are like the DPS. Think Kobe Bryant. They usually do the most damage on offense, can usually score in a variety of ways.
PF would be like off tank and Center the Tank. Hard for a team to go anywhere without good big men.
But see...the roles in ANY team sport are not so static. While Chris Paul is the prototypical PG (healer) you have a guy like Derrick Rose or Westbrook that are not. They will willingly score the ball and a guy like Westbrook will even deny his teammates the ball so that he can score. He's still very effective though.
While SGs and SFs usually do a lot of the scoring in the NBA...a guy like Lebron is not the prototypical SF. He can assist, bring the ball up, rebound, defend the paint, score in the paint...do it all basically.
While big men are usually relied on to grab rebounds and defend the paint...Dirk Nowitzki doesn't. He rather shoot and score on the perimeter. We could do this with every team sport. Roles are not static.
So you see, what EQN and other games are trying to do is make the roles less static than what they are. So that a healer could still heal but also play a backup damage role...or perhaps he could still just be a full on healer. At least that is what I took from it.
I think GW2 did a pretty good job of it. Just like basketball everyone scores(DPS) but everyone also has to do something else. Sullpy buffs, remove conditions, CC, etc etc...
Positioning and attacks of opportuny do not make a "tank" nothing forces the enemy to attack anyone. But if you insisted that is still tanking (which it really isn't) you would have to concede that any melee fighter in GW1 was also a tank, because that is precisely how melee fighters worked in GW1: bodyblocking, positioning, pressure & harassment.
No... The tank role is to make yourself as hard to kill as possible and then fool the AI to attack you. Frontline fighters in many games such as GW1, D&D etc. do not follow this criteria. Healing spells, in D&D, required the healer to touch his/her target, which could easily compromise the healer in melee range. For this reason, healing was reserved for emergencies only. Drinking potions in melee would also provoke an attack of opportunity. How is this relevant to your argument? Have you even played D&D?
Non-trinity combat is far more varied than trinity combat, don't be silly. It is only limited by encounter and monster design. It also has more resemblance to PvP, and bringing PvE and PvP metagames closer together would help in a number of classic issues such as "wolves hunting the sheep" in OPvP games or PvP and PvE skill/class balance.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The same thing is true for any type of combat role. Just because the roles are named different, doesn't mean they are not roles anymore. Of course you can remove all roles and make every class exactly the same as the rest, but I have my doubts that this will make the game more interessting. It's like playing a FPS where you got exactly one weapon.
Or do you know a way to have custom classes without roles?
Positioning, attacks of opportunity, and forced movement do make a tank, provided you have decent hit points and armor class. It's actually similar to what Age of Conan used for PvP tanking. It had very legit PvP tanking. I know all you Trinity people hate agro based tanking, it's not inherently bad. It's just a simplification.
The tank role is to prevent damage from occurring to teammates and soak damage. Period. That's what makes a tank a tank. You are conflating AI scripting and combat mechanics with a class role.
Not all heals required touch in DnD. The big thing though about healing is that there's no way to recover after a fight without it. There's no "click to rest to full health" button unless your playing with house rules.
Trinity combat is far more varied than you give it credit. The problem you really have is the scripting (and probably add ons). People who've done high end raid content in EQ or early WoW raiding before mods, guides, nerfs, and poor design trivialized it will agree. Even after that, some of the WoW raiding has still been extraordinarily difficult. One of the things you Trinity haters typically love to do is look at the current environment and say "it's the Trinity's fault!" It's not. It's content design. It's class homogenization. It's an emphasis on small scale content. Killing Lucifron in early WoW before Decursive, threat meters, boss mods, etc. took more coordination, communication, and on the fly adaptation than pretty much anything I've ever done since.
Bringing PvP and PvE closer together has nothing to do with the Trinity and everything to do with the actual content and combat mechanics. Someone brought up the issue of skill rotations. I agree. They suck. It's bad design. It's not due to the Trinity. It's due to bad design and bad design is a very common problem with the MMOs out there right now.
It really doesn't matter if you want to call every melee character a tank. People are not against that kind of "tank". People are against the AI exploiting tank - the ridiculous taunt mechanics, which often define PvE metagame. The most trivial type of defense there is, is to have one guy soaking damage and another healing him. Its just stupid and boring.
And I'm not going to trust anyone's word on a forum that a game is hard, because Eve Online is supposed to be hard, but it isn't. It is very easy, fairly straight forwad, only thing that would make it feel hard, if you were bad at it. And it is true: 90% of Eve players are just plain bad. I wouldn't be surprised if other games had similar numbers. You get those guys playing some other game like World of Tanks, Battlefield 3 or League of Legends and you'll realize an alarmingly high number of those players are well below average players. Maybe its just the players I know, but they certainly have no business looking down on WoW or any other MMO they deem "casual" or "easymode". I secretly laugh my ass off when they talk on TS how Eve is "hardcore" or whatever.
I've actually played games that don't have the trinity with people who have only known the trinity. Mostly they have significant trouble to understand and adjust to the new combat dynamics. One guy just kept yelling "who's tanking, who's tanking". Worse players are those who insist on being a "healer" playing an Elementalist in GW2. They are so engrained in the trinity they are often unable to let go of it. In the end they just get confused and frustrated and quit. That is precisely where you get these comments "there's no structure, its chaotic" or "its a zergfest".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
You are a prime example of what's silly about this argument - its obvious you haven't done anything remotely hard because if you had, say heroic Ragnaros in Firelands, you would know how difficult and challenging every persons role can be. Sure trinity is boring at toddler level but the challenge is for you to get better and rise to the challenge.
I agree with you that the challenge of encountered isn't caused or limited by whether or not trinity combat is used. There are plenty of challenging aspects to combat that uses the trinity style system.
I would say though, that trinity style combat systems tend to be repetitive. If you do a fight once, fail or succeed, it will largely be the same as the next time you run the fight or the last time you run the fight. Changing roles changes your experience of the fight, but the fight itself largely remains the same. I think this is the only "problem" with trinity style combat.
I put problem in quotes because it's not really a problem, it's a preference. I spent a lot of time in Kharazan (sp) in WoW and enjoyed pretty much all of it. The fights didn't change all that much, but it was still interesting and fun.
The fights in Champions Online were pretty fun too though. EQN is doing something different, and that might be fun as well. *shrug* Sorry, just can't get worked up and really pick a side on this issue.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Neither method is right or wrong.. they are play style options.. I too have played games like GW2 where it's primary combat is ZERG.. It is what it is.. There are times I'm in the mood for that, times I'm not.. There are times I'm in the mood for FPS combat like Call of Duty, and then there are times I'm in the mood for turn bases and RTS games.. They are ALL good, It baffles me how so many argue over "role" classes are bad.. This is about as crazy as some demanding that McDonald's shouldn't be selling chicken sammies, because burgers are better.. Really?
I think it happened as more and more people realized they were just buying different versions of the same game. Different names for gods and dragons. Once you understood this, you realized you were only switching up the curtains on the same game. Attack big bad. Tank holds aggro by cracking yo mamma jokes. Healer heals the tank. Heck, if anyone else needs a heal, because the DPS didn't move out of fire, or because they didn't wait .4 seconds for the ultimate mamma joke of infinite hate to land on the tank's target, the healer felt put out. And the dps? Wait the .4 seconds the tank needs to establish aggro. Then do the rotation laid out it in the sticky, in your class forum. Oh, and watch the dps meter. All the while the big bad is apparently a slack-jawed simpleton who can't look past hurtful words. Then the party ends and the tank and healer switch to their questing spec.
The same old stupid fights, against the same stupid big bads, all so two classes/builds that are only good for one aspect of the game, have a place in the game.
Again, no one is arguing against roles. GW2 has roles, GW1 had roles, LoL has roles, even Counter Strike has roles! They just don't use the trinity. And its the trinity we are against.
You are showing your ignorance and your ingrained mindset by calling any other system "zerg".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
My experience is that many trinity players don't bother to learn any other types of roles, play the easy content and wipe in the hard and then quit saying they got bored. In fact that was surprisingly common in the first GW game, I know many people from Wow that played the 20 levels and then died a lot and finally quit, but they never really bother learn how the group dynamics actually worked and a game becomes really hard then.
You don't really need roles for GW2s open world, you can zerg most things there if you enjoy that (or suck) but once you start the explorable dungeons those people tend to whine a lot, and BTW, you can't revive in dungeons anymore unless the group has wiped and the boss reset.
I blame a lot of the problems on the game though, if GW2 was as hard as it was during the first 2 beta weeks before whiners got it down people would actually have to learn how to play from the start.
But yes, there are group dynamics in most games and while you can ignore those by zerging some content that doesn't mean that the game is easy. Open world content in any modern MMO is so easy that you can ignore group dynamics but that goes for trinity games as well as others.
I said it before: Raise the difficulty of the open world.
Simply having roles does not make it a better system than trinity. I am all for new forms of combat, trinity is a good but stale system. But you need something good to replace it, what we have seen so far over the years has just been one step after another of removing the need for trinity and by extension grouping.
Raising the difficulty in open world at least in certain areas should be the way to go. They need to make MMO's harder in way they can. Not uber leet hardcore, I am not saying that, but MMO's have become the RPG equivalent of a Walkthrough.
The problem of players not being able to group well at later levels because they never had to group at lower levels has been with us for years. But now grouping is a just a content choice, do you want to do a dungeon before you hit top level?
A Zerg is not a combat tactic, style or system. It is the lack of having such a system. In the right gameplay context it can be fun, but if that is all you have then the MMO is lacking.
The "problem" with the (un)Holy Trinity playstyle arose from the game designers building encounters that could only be done a certain way.
Take EQ1 at release;
Warriors did more damage than any other class with the same Stats and Weapons (100% + Str Bonus vs. 75% and no bonus). As well with the first expansion gained a skill that reduced incoming damage to a degree vastly greater than any other class could even dream of.
Clerics, Shaman and Druids got the 'same' Heals spells, except the Shaman and Druids version healed less and were acquired at a later level (ie 360 vs 400iirc). As well, ONLY Clerics got Complete Heal, the best HP/AC buffs, no one else came close.
Enchanters were only second at Slowing a targets attack, but were bar none first at Speeding players attack speeds, Crowd Control, Mana regen, and more.
The Devs there then built encounters that ONLY a Warrior could Tank, ONLY a Cleric could heal, and with the best support as the Enchanter. Others were only fill ins once the group had one each of these.
Later, much later, they completely rebalanced the skills sets such that every class had a unique line and ability they brought to the table.
If a Warrior wasn't available to Tank, a Cleric to Heal, an Enchanter to Buff/Debuff, others could fill in for group play, but... You were much more likely to wipe and have a bad experience. Attainable content was lesser, and Difficult content needed to be avoided.
This is what brought the 'bad taste' to the Trinity model.