Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard So many ignorant votes and answers when the obvious reason is poll option number 2. What makes the "trinity" (even if there are more than 3 roles... which is even more funny) is the threat/taunt based combat.
Problem is that you answer the wrong question. Aggro/hate/threat is about determing mobs target, while trinity is discussing roles, most particularly the reliance on strong tanks and healers. You can have combat rely on tank, healer and damage dealers without having hate/threat charts and you can have hate/threat based mob targetting without relying on both tanks and healers.
Blade&soul has aggro-based combat, but its not a trinity based game, same thing goes for quite a lot of other korean games with action combat.
In a trinity based mechanic (threat tables with snap aggro/taunts) the only role that is and has been consistent, the only role that matters, is the tank. From then to now all the other roles have changed shape and definition. It was CC + Healer and now it's DPS + Healer, although it could be argued those definitions are overly broad an inaccurate. The common core of that is the tank. It always has been and always will be, in a trinity based combat mechanic. The other two legs that make up the trinity can change.
That doesn't mean there aren't two other roles that are needed, but that the trinity isn't defined by those roles. Every role needs some damage or the mob doesn't die. What those two roles are is irrelevant if combat is based on threat tables and the first role is a threat generator with taunt/snap aggro.
It really surprised me how few people voted option 2. On second thought it explains a lot about the discussions here, but none the less a bit surprising.
If the mechanic is based on threat, its a threat-based mechanic.
You could have threat tables without having any roles at all so the tables clearly doesn't rely on roles. You also said that the only role that mattered was the tank, so its clearly not a trinity-based mechanic.
Yes, and we call that threat-based taunt system.... THE TRINITY!
The key is threat tables with the primary role being a threat generator with taunts/snap-aggro.
Did you read for comprehension? I said that only one role was definitive. There are two other roles and having those other roles is necessary. What those roles are isn't necessary to the definition of the trinity at all. History and the evolution and various iterations of the system have shown this to be true.
You call a threat-based system the trinity when it has nothing to do with three of something. That makes absolutely no sense.
That players looked at it and came up with the name 'trinity' is immaterial. It's like complaining about the DAoCers that called any two-boxing or buff character a 'bot'.
I know people started to use the term trinity interchangeable when talking about both threat-based systems and group roles sometime around when wotlk was released, just like people started calling everything MMO's a few years back.
I just find that its a poor way of describing things, and I wish people would say threat-based systems or group roles instead of just using trinity for everything since it always cause confusion.
When people say trinity, i immediately think of tanks, healers and damage dealers. Given the polls I am clearly not alone in thinking that way.
And thats all fine and dandy, but DEFINING trait of that system is taunt because it wouldnt work otherwise.
As you can see, people argue that actual roles have changed through the time, but ONLY constant is TAUNT mecahnic. Its perfectly viable to have trinity without healers and heavy CC. But what you still have - TAUNT mechanic.
People take current setup as tank-heal-DPS as gratned because it pretty much only one used. Hard CC/buff/debuff was phased out for obvious reasons. Buff bots....yeah, noone wants to play that.
And no, if you did not have taunt it wouldnt be called trinity (you see it quite nicely on these forums, GW2 has roles and threat mechanic, that obviously works quite differently than trinity) but it isnt called trinity, in fact its proclalimed "anti-trinity"....ill put it mildly)
So you may petition for changing what it means, but when someone says trinity it means same thing for 15-ish years now, nether has developers stance on tirnity changed in those same 15-ish years.
What if a game had only 1 class and that class would have a taunt ?
Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard So many ignorant votes and answers when the obvious reason is poll option number 2. What makes the "trinity" (even if there are more than 3 roles... which is even more funny) is the threat/taunt based combat.
Problem is that you answer the wrong question. Aggro/hate/threat is about determing mobs target, while trinity is discussing roles, most particularly the reliance on strong tanks and healers. You can have combat rely on tank, healer and damage dealers without having hate/threat charts and you can have hate/threat based mob targetting without relying on both tanks and healers.
Blade&soul has aggro-based combat, but its not a trinity based game, same thing goes for quite a lot of other korean games with action combat.
In a trinity based mechanic (threat tables with snap aggro/taunts) the only role that is and has been consistent, the only role that matters, is the tank. From then to now all the other roles have changed shape and definition. It was CC + Healer and now it's DPS + Healer, although it could be argued those definitions are overly broad an inaccurate. The common core of that is the tank. It always has been and always will be, in a trinity based combat mechanic. The other two legs that make up the trinity can change.
That doesn't mean there aren't two other roles that are needed, but that the trinity isn't defined by those roles. Every role needs some damage or the mob doesn't die. What those two roles are is irrelevant if combat is based on threat tables and the first role is a threat generator with taunt/snap aggro.
It really surprised me how few people voted option 2. On second thought it explains a lot about the discussions here, but none the less a bit surprising.
If the mechanic is based on threat, its a threat-based mechanic.
You could have threat tables without having any roles at all so the tables clearly doesn't rely on roles. You also said that the only role that mattered was the tank, so its clearly not a trinity-based mechanic.
Yes, and we call that threat-based taunt system.... THE TRINITY!
The key is threat tables with the primary role being a threat generator with taunts/snap-aggro.
Did you read for comprehension? I said that only one role was definitive. There are two other roles and having those other roles is necessary. What those roles are isn't necessary to the definition of the trinity at all. History and the evolution and various iterations of the system have shown this to be true.
You call a threat-based system the trinity when it has nothing to do with three of something. That makes absolutely no sense.
That players looked at it and came up with the name 'trinity' is immaterial. It's like complaining about the DAoCers that called any two-boxing or buff character a 'bot'.
I know people started to use the term trinity interchangeable when talking about both threat-based systems and group roles sometime around when wotlk was released, just like people started calling everything MMO's a few years back.
I just find that its a poor way of describing things, and I wish people would say threat-based systems or group roles instead of just using trinity for everything since it always cause confusion.
When people say trinity, i immediately think of tanks, healers and damage dealers. Given the polls I am clearly not alone in thinking that way.
And thats all fine and dandy, but DEFINING trait of that system is taunt because it wouldnt work otherwise.
As you can see, people argue that actual roles have changed through the time, but ONLY constant is TAUNT mecahnic. Its perfectly viable to have trinity without healers and heavy CC. But what you still have - TAUNT mechanic.
People take current setup as tank-heal-DPS as gratned because it pretty much only one used. Hard CC/buff/debuff was phased out for obvious reasons. Buff bots....yeah, noone wants to play that.
And no, if you did not have taunt it wouldnt be called trinity (you see it quite nicely on these forums, GW2 has roles and threat mechanic, that obviously works quite differently than trinity) but it isnt called trinity, in fact its proclalimed "anti-trinity"....ill put it mildly)
So you may petition for changing what it means, but when someone says trinity it means same thing for 15-ish years now, nether has developers stance on tirnity changed in those same 15-ish years.
What if a game had only 1 class and that class would have a taunt ?
Same as GW2 case. And theres a reason why its called TRInity.
And thats all fine and dandy, but DEFINING trait of that system is taunt because it wouldnt work otherwise.
As you can see, people argue that actual roles have changed through the time, but ONLY constant is TAUNT mecahnic. Its perfectly viable to have trinity without healers and heavy CC. But what you still have - TAUNT mechanic.
People take current setup as tank-heal-DPS as gratned because it pretty much only one used. Hard CC/buff/debuff was phased out for obvious reasons. Buff bots....yeah, noone wants to play that.
And no, if you did not have taunt it wouldnt be called trinity (you see it quite nicely on these forums, GW2 has roles and threat mechanic, that obviously works quite differently than trinity) but it isnt called trinity, in fact its proclalimed "anti-trinity"....ill put it mildly)
So you may petition for changing what it means, but when someone says trinity it means same thing for 15-ish years now, nether has developers stance on tirnity changed in those same 15-ish years.
What if a game had only 1 class and that class would have a taunt ?
Same as GW2 case. And theres a reason why its called TRInity.
So there wouldn't be a TRInity without 3 roles ? Is that what you are saying ? So basically everyone been saying the same thing...
No, there doesn't have to be a force taunt ability, only a way for the tank role to generate threat. The more predictable you make the system using force taunt mechanics, the more boring it becomes. The less predictable the system, the more skill involved in walking the fine line between doing your job, and getting yourself and perhaps your party or raid killed.
And thats all fine and dandy, but DEFINING trait of that system is taunt because it wouldnt work otherwise.
As you can see, people argue that actual roles have changed through the time, but ONLY constant is TAUNT mecahnic. Its perfectly viable to have trinity without healers and heavy CC. But what you still have - TAUNT mechanic.
People take current setup as tank-heal-DPS as gratned because it pretty much only one used. Hard CC/buff/debuff was phased out for obvious reasons. Buff bots....yeah, noone wants to play that.
And no, if you did not have taunt it wouldnt be called trinity (you see it quite nicely on these forums, GW2 has roles and threat mechanic, that obviously works quite differently than trinity) but it isnt called trinity, in fact its proclalimed "anti-trinity"....ill put it mildly)
So you may petition for changing what it means, but when someone says trinity it means same thing for 15-ish years now, nether has developers stance on tirnity changed in those same 15-ish years.
What if a game had only 1 class and that class would have a taunt ?
Same as GW2 case. And theres a reason why its called TRInity.
So there wouldn't be a TRInity without 3 roles ? Is that what you are saying ? So basically everyone been saying the same thing...
Nope, theres no trinity without taunt mechainic.
So when you speak of trinity and what it means in MMOs for past 15-ish years its 3 roles (tri, duh) AND tank/taunt mechanic. BOTH (number of classes pointless question, but certain people would throw a fit over just one class), just because it has been set up that way by DEVELOPERS from the start.
Same as GW2 case. And theres a reason why its called TRInity.
So there wouldn't be a TRInity without 3 roles ? Is that what you are saying ? So basically everyone been saying the same thing...
Nope, theres no trinity without taunt mechainic.
So when you speak of trinity and what it means in MMOs for past 15-ish years its 3 roles (tri, duh) AND tank/taunt mechanic. BOTH (number of classes pointless question, but certain people would throw a fit over just one class), just because it has been set up that way by DEVELOPERS from the start.
And yet taunt was a small factor in EQ threat. In fact, taunt did not even generate threat, only damage, spells, procs and other special abilities and disciplines did. All it did was turn the mob away from its target briefly, and hopefully during that time the tank could do something besides taunt to keep aggro. For a long time in Everquest, taunt did nothing if the mob was attacking the tank and taunt also did nothing if you had shit for threat. On top of all that, taunt only worked on mobs lower level than the tank. You literally couldn't hope to keep threat using taunt against hard mobs or raid bosses.
Same as GW2 case. And theres a reason why its called TRInity.
So there wouldn't be a TRInity without 3 roles ? Is that what you are saying ? So basically everyone been saying the same thing...
Nope, theres no trinity without taunt mechainic.
So when you speak of trinity and what it means in MMOs for past 15-ish years its 3 roles (tri, duh) AND tank/taunt mechanic. BOTH (number of classes pointless question, but certain people would throw a fit over just one class), just because it has been set up that way by DEVELOPERS from the start.
And yet taunt was a small factor in EQ threat. In fact, taunt did not even generate threat, only damage, spells, procs and other special abilities and disciplines did. For a long time in Everquest, taunt did nothing if the mob was attacking the tank and taunt also did nothing if you had shit for threat. On top of all that, taunt only worked on mobs lower level than the tank. You literally couldn't hope to keep threat using taunt against hard mobs or raid bosses.
There goes that theory!
Exactly, you could hold agro by simply being the closest to the target most of the time. That taunt mechanic being mandatory came from wow. Problem is, we had trinity before taunt actually did anything in EQ.
Same as GW2 case. And theres a reason why its called TRInity.
So there wouldn't be a TRInity without 3 roles ? Is that what you are saying ? So basically everyone been saying the same thing...
Nope, theres no trinity without taunt mechainic.
So when you speak of trinity and what it means in MMOs for past 15-ish years its 3 roles (tri, duh) AND tank/taunt mechanic. BOTH (number of classes pointless question, but certain people would throw a fit over just one class), just because it has been set up that way by DEVELOPERS from the start.
And yet taunt was a small factor in EQ threat. In fact, taunt did not even generate threat, only damage, spells, procs and other special abilities and disciplines did. All it did was turn the mob away from its target briefly, and hopefully during that time the tank could do something besides taunt to keep aggro. For a long time in Everquest, taunt did nothing if the mob was attacking the tank and taunt also did nothing if you had shit for threat. On top of all that, taunt only worked on mobs lower level than the tank. You literally couldn't hope to keep threat using taunt against hard mobs or raid bosses.
There goes that theory!
It was a skill that had a specific purpose, very defined purpose. Oh yes, it evolved a bit since then. But purpose is the same now and then.
Even today you dont use taunt much except for oh shit skill or AOE opener on multiple mobs when convenient, and it still does nothing if you have shit for threat and theres still most tanks that cant keep aggro. Just go PUG some hard modes in random game and youll have ephiphany.
Thats the difference though. When fighting hard mobs or bosses in EQ, the tank needed time to piss the mob off before people engaged. If people went into dps mode too fast, taunt would not save them. I remember we used to let the warrior fight a raid boss alone for at least 5-10% of the mobs health before anyone else could engage. On a raid mob, besides needing extra mana, more healers were necessary to share the heal based threat so no single healer pulled aggro.
Those strategies came about simply because taunt meant very little in the threat system.
Originally posted by Dullahan Thats the difference though. When fighting hard mobs or bosses in EQ, the tank needed time to piss the mob off before people engaged. If people went into dps mode too fast, taunt would not save them. I remember we used to let the warrior fight a raid boss alone for at least 5-10% of the mobs health before anyone else could engage. On a raid mob, besides needing extra mana, more healers were necessary to share the heal based threat so no single healer pulled aggro.
Go PUG some instnces beside LFR and easy modes and then report back. No, taunt wont save you.
Personally I see it like a sports team. There used to be easily defined team positions with distinct roles of defence, support and attack for helping the team score. Now everyone just rushes the goal in one undefined mob.
You can be undefined mob or L2P. Its entirely your choice, and no, i dont need the game to put me in my place.
As mentioned before, the original trinity was tank, heals, cc, but without dedicated dps, people weren't going anywhere, so groups in EQ really needed 4 types: tank, heals, cc, dps, and often a puller, but that usually was part of the cc or dps classes. The trinity naming came about as the core of a group to start, not having purely only those 3 types like games do today.
So the whole start of the "trinity" gameplay wasn't even trinity based, but quad based. Daoc was like that too with tank, heals/support, cc, dps, and could even argue run speed as a 5th.
edit: I did vote it is tank, heals, dps, because that is what it is today, but it wasn't always.
Originally posted by thundercles Only two roles in trinity: Guys who get blamed for wipe and dps know it alls. (Just kidding, I've been playing healers for too long now.)
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
To understand the original EQ trinity you must first understand the spell COMPLETE HEAL. So absurdly OP and efficient that groups must be designed around it. So the first pillar is the CLERIC, not Healing.
Now we need something to Complete Heal, you need a TANK (Warrior, Paladin, SK) which has enough hit points to be efficient and can hold aggro.
Thirdly is the ENCHANTER which is in a class by itself for CC (Sorry bards). She controls the battlefield allowing the Cleric to cast a 10 second heal.
HOLY TRINITY = CLERIC, ENCHANTER, TANK, or COMPLETE HEAL, MESMERIZE, AGGRO anything else was gimp.
Why the history lesson? To show that the original trinity was much more specific than people realize.
EQ is like older RPG, actual RPG. Where classes were well defined, and much thought went into them.
People who played older console RPG like Shining force, Suikoden would look at a game like Black Desert and think it's for 5-year-olds.
Today's MMO really don't even boher anymore, they just hand every class a DPS class and call it a day.
Every class in a game like Black Desert is DPS, they don't even care anymore, it's like they can't even be bothered to make an RPG anymore, they are so bad at game design, that their games and classes all revolve around damage and dodging.
Damage and Dodge, 99% of MMO coming out in 2015. Have fun. Want other type of gameplay? Sorry, we're too stupid to make that.
First off, people need to understand that tanks are crowd control. Being able to absorb damage is why people call them tanks, but you can prevent damage to players without being 'tanky'.
Second, damage dealer is not a 'class'. Damage can be applied to any kind of ability in any game. 'DPS' classes are not absolutely required in any game.
Third, healing is just another form of damage mitigation. Damage can be mitigated in many different ways. 'Healer' classes are not absolutely required in any game.
So, if you wanted, you could make a game with only one class type; either pure damage mitigation or pure crowd control. However, this boils gameplay down to a very simplistic and repetitive experience. The trinity is just a way to expand gameplay using well known tropes.
Sorry if you were expecting me to start with a clear definition. All I will say in this OP is that we seem to have some minor dispute to what the trinity actually is in threads that are trying to discuss it's pro's and cons so I thought it might be beneficial if we could actually define it. The name suggest it is three parts and I myself (up until recently) thought it was commonly accepted that it was in relation to the reliance of three primary roles, tank, healer and dps.
A quick search on the internet may also lead you to this way of thinking, one of the first hits I got on google was from gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132607/rethinking_the_trinity_of_mmo_.php?print=1 "One common design in MMORPGs is the "holy trinity" of class roles: Tank, Healer, and DPS (or damage dealers). As most games are about combat, these roles are about how damage is handled: Tanks can mitigate incoming damage from enemies, healers restore damage done from enemies, and DPS classes do damage to enemies."
Now we seem to have people claiming that the trinity is not even about roles just about taunt mechanics which I found surprising yet they were from some posters that I find to be generally knowledge.
So what is the Trinity?
The issue with your poll is: DPS was never a part of the original trinity. It was Tank / Healer / CC.
More specifically, it was Warrior / Cleric / Enchanter
Finally! Someone actually gives the 100% correct answer of Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. Glad I'm not the only one here who actually played EQ way back when. That was the original trinity back in 99 but today, largey thanks to WoW, we have roles rather than classes and they have changed to tank, healer, dps.
But to me the Holy Trinity will always be Warrior, Cleric and Enchanter. EQ was a game where it mattered, because it's only the early MMO's that had real difficulty. Everything today is just too easy. Themepark sums it up perfectly, it might look scarey but it won't really hurt you.
Finally! Someone actually gives the 100% correct answer of Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. Glad I'm not the only one here who actually played EQ way back when. That was the original trinity back in 99 but today, largey thanks to WoW, we have roles rather than classes and they have changed to tank, healer, dps.
But to me the Holy Trinity will always be Warrior, Cleric and Enchanter. EQ was a game where it mattered, because it's only the early MMO's that had real difficulty. Everything today is just too easy. Themepark sums it up perfectly, it might look scarey but it won't really hurt you.
Quoting this because it amuses me in so many wonderful ways. I need to save and cherish it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
EQ is like older RPG, actual RPG. Where classes were well defined, and much thought went into them.
People who played older console RPG like Shining force, Suikoden would look at a game like Black Desert and think it's for 5-year-olds.
Today's MMO really don't even boher anymore, they just hand every class a DPS class and call it a day.
Every class in a game like Black Desert is DPS, they don't even care anymore, it's like they can't even be bothered to make an RPG anymore, they are so bad at game design, that their games and classes all revolve around damage and dodging.
Damage and Dodge, 99% of MMO coming out in 2015. Have fun. Want other type of gameplay? Sorry, we're too stupid to make that
Maybe you'd like to flesh this idea out by explaining in detail why you felt EQ's classes were better defined and detailed, because it seems like they're worse detailed than the better later MMORPGs like WOW, and that "better defined" is a nice way of saying "pigeonholed into one lifetime role" which isn't exactly a desirable trait for an RPG to have.
I'm not here to defend Black Desert's class design since I'm unfamiliar with it and in all likelihood you chose one particularly bad MMORPG to make your comparison against so that you seem to have a strong point. If we want to look at other recent MMORPGs with well designed classes, we could take a look at GW2 or ESO.
Shining Force was great and all, but you probably shouldn't be comparing it against RTS games which in some cases clearly have much greater skill depth (it's not like Shining Force was being played competitively a decade later like SC1 was, and SC2 is likely to as well.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You will of course never admit it, but you are wrong. All those computer RPGs, and the P&P RPGs before, NEVER had the trinity like it was introduced by Everquest, with the dumb "threat" based tanking mechanics. NO game had that before. It was the easy way introduced by EQ to replace the human and dungeon master interactions.
It might be a lot dumber than a DM yet it's the best we ever had. Even in P&P rpg we had threat management, the big guy was running in the front of the group body tanking in narrow passages, the wizard could use illusions to reduce agro chances etc.
There always have been ways to funnel the damage to the guy best able to receive that damage. The ''taunt skill'' of EQ, WoW is just a simplified version of the intimidate skill of RPG that came before.
Also if your DM wasn't a total retard, he wouldn't get you in totally overwhelming arms way. Any DM could easily destroy any adventurer group if he wished so. He could decide to simply focus fire the cleric or wizard, while snaring your melees, but how fun would that have been ? The DM regulated the danger meter. It not an easy task to reproduce in a computer simulated world.
EQ is like older RPG, actual RPG. Where classes were well defined, and much thought went into them.
People who played older console RPG like Shining force, Suikoden would look at a game like Black Desert and think it's for 5-year-olds.
Today's MMO really don't even boher anymore, they just hand every class a DPS class and call it a day.
Every class in a game like Black Desert is DPS, they don't even care anymore, it's like they can't even be bothered to make an RPG anymore, they are so bad at game design, that their games and classes all revolve around damage and dodging.
Damage and Dodge, 99% of MMO coming out in 2015. Have fun. Want other type of gameplay? Sorry, we're too stupid to make that.
EQ was action hack&slash game that had no RPG in it whastsoever, it just borrowed stats from RPGs.
Thats why youre so confused.
And guess what? PnP everyone was DPS too. And tank, And there was no threat/taunt mechanic and healing was pretty much out of combat stuff.
It might be a lot dumber than a DM yet it's the best we ever had.
Horizons (Istaria) and EVE Online are two that come to mind that easily contest that statement. I'm sure there are others, too.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Comments
What if a game had only 1 class and that class would have a taunt ?
Same as GW2 case. And theres a reason why its called TRInity.
So there wouldn't be a TRInity without 3 roles ? Is that what you are saying ? So basically everyone been saying the same thing...
3 major roles + threat. That is it.
No, there doesn't have to be a force taunt ability, only a way for the tank role to generate threat. The more predictable you make the system using force taunt mechanics, the more boring it becomes. The less predictable the system, the more skill involved in walking the fine line between doing your job, and getting yourself and perhaps your party or raid killed.
Nope, theres no trinity without taunt mechainic.
So when you speak of trinity and what it means in MMOs for past 15-ish years its 3 roles (tri, duh) AND tank/taunt mechanic. BOTH (number of classes pointless question, but certain people would throw a fit over just one class), just because it has been set up that way by DEVELOPERS from the start.
And yet taunt was a small factor in EQ threat. In fact, taunt did not even generate threat, only damage, spells, procs and other special abilities and disciplines did. All it did was turn the mob away from its target briefly, and hopefully during that time the tank could do something besides taunt to keep aggro. For a long time in Everquest, taunt did nothing if the mob was attacking the tank and taunt also did nothing if you had shit for threat. On top of all that, taunt only worked on mobs lower level than the tank. You literally couldn't hope to keep threat using taunt against hard mobs or raid bosses.
There goes that theory!
Exactly, you could hold agro by simply being the closest to the target most of the time. That taunt mechanic being mandatory came from wow. Problem is, we had trinity before taunt actually did anything in EQ.
It was a skill that had a specific purpose, very defined purpose. Oh yes, it evolved a bit since then. But purpose is the same now and then.
Even today you dont use taunt much except for oh shit skill or AOE opener on multiple mobs when convenient, and it still does nothing if you have shit for threat and theres still most tanks that cant keep aggro. Just go PUG some hard modes in random game and youll have ephiphany.
Thats the difference though. When fighting hard mobs or bosses in EQ, the tank needed time to piss the mob off before people engaged. If people went into dps mode too fast, taunt would not save them. I remember we used to let the warrior fight a raid boss alone for at least 5-10% of the mobs health before anyone else could engage. On a raid mob, besides needing extra mana, more healers were necessary to share the heal based threat so no single healer pulled aggro.
Those strategies came about simply because taunt meant very little in the threat system.
Go PUG some instnces beside LFR and easy modes and then report back. No, taunt wont save you.
You can be undefined mob or L2P. Its entirely your choice, and no, i dont need the game to put me in my place.
As mentioned before, the original trinity was tank, heals, cc, but without dedicated dps, people weren't going anywhere, so groups in EQ really needed 4 types: tank, heals, cc, dps, and often a puller, but that usually was part of the cc or dps classes. The trinity naming came about as the core of a group to start, not having purely only those 3 types like games do today.
So the whole start of the "trinity" gameplay wasn't even trinity based, but quad based. Daoc was like that too with tank, heals/support, cc, dps, and could even argue run speed as a 5th.
edit: I did vote it is tank, heals, dps, because that is what it is today, but it wasn't always.
Guys who get blamed for wipe and
dps know it alls. (Just kidding, I've been playing healers for too long now.)
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
To understand the original EQ trinity you must first understand the spell COMPLETE HEAL. So absurdly OP and efficient that groups must be designed around it. So the first pillar is the CLERIC, not Healing.
Now we need something to Complete Heal, you need a TANK (Warrior, Paladin, SK) which has enough hit points to be efficient and can hold aggro.
Thirdly is the ENCHANTER which is in a class by itself for CC (Sorry bards). She controls the battlefield allowing the Cleric to cast a 10 second heal.
HOLY TRINITY = CLERIC, ENCHANTER, TANK, or COMPLETE HEAL, MESMERIZE, AGGRO anything else was gimp.
Why the history lesson? To show that the original trinity was much more specific than people realize.
EQ is like older RPG, actual RPG. Where classes were well defined, and much thought went into them.
People who played older console RPG like Shining force, Suikoden would look at a game like Black Desert and think it's for 5-year-olds.
Today's MMO really don't even boher anymore, they just hand every class a DPS class and call it a day.
Every class in a game like Black Desert is DPS, they don't even care anymore, it's like they can't even be bothered to make an RPG anymore, they are so bad at game design, that their games and classes all revolve around damage and dodging.
Damage and Dodge, 99% of MMO coming out in 2015. Have fun. Want other type of gameplay? Sorry, we're too stupid to make that.
Explaining -
First off, people need to understand that tanks are crowd control. Being able to absorb damage is why people call them tanks, but you can prevent damage to players without being 'tanky'.
Second, damage dealer is not a 'class'. Damage can be applied to any kind of ability in any game. 'DPS' classes are not absolutely required in any game.
Third, healing is just another form of damage mitigation. Damage can be mitigated in many different ways. 'Healer' classes are not absolutely required in any game.
So, if you wanted, you could make a game with only one class type; either pure damage mitigation or pure crowd control. However, this boils gameplay down to a very simplistic and repetitive experience. The trinity is just a way to expand gameplay using well known tropes.
Finally! Someone actually gives the 100% correct answer of Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. Glad I'm not the only one here who actually played EQ way back when. That was the original trinity back in 99 but today, largey thanks to WoW, we have roles rather than classes and they have changed to tank, healer, dps.
But to me the Holy Trinity will always be Warrior, Cleric and Enchanter. EQ was a game where it mattered, because it's only the early MMO's that had real difficulty. Everything today is just too easy. Themepark sums it up perfectly, it might look scarey but it won't really hurt you.
Quoting this because it amuses me in so many wonderful ways. I need to save and cherish it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
what in the world are you talking about
EQ starting tank / healer / dps? RPG had tank / healer / DPS for decades.
Shining force had tanks / DPS / healers, and it came out almost a decade before EQ.
Again, what?
Suikoden, Langrisser, Warsong, Shining Force, Baldur's gate. They all came out before EQ.
They didn't have well defined classes? wut?
can I borrow your avatar?
Maybe you'd like to flesh this idea out by explaining in detail why you felt EQ's classes were better defined and detailed, because it seems like they're worse detailed than the better later MMORPGs like WOW, and that "better defined" is a nice way of saying "pigeonholed into one lifetime role" which isn't exactly a desirable trait for an RPG to have.
I'm not here to defend Black Desert's class design since I'm unfamiliar with it and in all likelihood you chose one particularly bad MMORPG to make your comparison against so that you seem to have a strong point. If we want to look at other recent MMORPGs with well designed classes, we could take a look at GW2 or ESO.
Shining Force was great and all, but you probably shouldn't be comparing it against RTS games which in some cases clearly have much greater skill depth (it's not like Shining Force was being played competitively a decade later like SC1 was, and SC2 is likely to as well.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It might be a lot dumber than a DM yet it's the best we ever had. Even in P&P rpg we had threat management, the big guy was running in the front of the group body tanking in narrow passages, the wizard could use illusions to reduce agro chances etc.
There always have been ways to funnel the damage to the guy best able to receive that damage. The ''taunt skill'' of EQ, WoW is just a simplified version of the intimidate skill of RPG that came before.
Also if your DM wasn't a total retard, he wouldn't get you in totally overwhelming arms way. Any DM could easily destroy any adventurer group if he wished so. He could decide to simply focus fire the cleric or wizard, while snaring your melees, but how fun would that have been ? The DM regulated the danger meter. It not an easy task to reproduce in a computer simulated world.
EQ was action hack&slash game that had no RPG in it whastsoever, it just borrowed stats from RPGs.
Thats why youre so confused.
And guess what? PnP everyone was DPS too. And tank, And there was no threat/taunt mechanic and healing was pretty much out of combat stuff.
Horizons (Istaria) and EVE Online are two that come to mind that easily contest that statement. I'm sure there are others, too.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre