I'd say back in Pen and Paper but its existed WAY before that. Back in medieval combat the concept existed in that lines would often have shield baring individuals meant to 'tank' the damage, providing cover and charging forward to take 'agro' of sorts while the 'dps' would be those archers or others at arms supporting from behind. Healers didn't really exist as much in RL, though they did come in play afterwards.
Its quite odd I suppose to consider it that way, but its just a natural tendency for combat. In a way, we all undergo all three roles ourselves as we will tank (defensive means of protecting ourself, naturally we will defend ourself before attacking), dps (forgoing those defenses to strike out), and heal/support (essencially after fighting or even during, we will tend to do what we can for a wound, weather its holding it or adjusting in some way to compensate for it, often times when 'tanking' the damage isn't needed.
Now, if its to philosophical or whatever you might want to consider it, just take in consideration it existed during pen and paper. It exists because its in our nature and logically its something any form of combat should consider. Without the trinity things quickly become a mess (case in point Guild wars 2) and it starts to become quite chaotic. While you can do things to balance it out and make it plausible, it just shifts 'how' those roles are done in group in a different manor. GW2 which tries to preach out of the trinity tries to make up for this by essencially filling that gap with CC, which while ignoring the flaws the system has, basically fills in tanking by having the mob 'distracted' from them, much like a tank would.
@PKJack: Going off your 2nd and last point, Heal/support typically is clumped together since they are one in the same. Yes, they do fill 'different' roles and both are needed, but essencially they are 'two peas in a pod' with healing just really being a glorified form of support. As for PnP with tactics, its very true but its essencially the same thing. The 'bruiser' melee types acted as tanks but without agro tables, instead relying on tactical placement in order to protect allies and provide that 'tanking' for the group. Its how 'agro' essencially works in those games which I can see being somehow done in an MMO at some point, but would still make them 'tanks'.
1. PnP games and computer based are like comparing apples and oranges.
2. EQ had 4 roles not a trinity - tank, healer, dps, and support, yes support ie bards and chanters that provided essential buffs debuffs pulls and crowd control.
3. Roles in DnD PnP games were not heavily enforced but tactics were. While Fighters and Paladins were ideal tanks, Cleric were pretty boss with the protection spells and plate armor. Bards and Wizards had so many options that it feels like your pigeon holing them in just one role. I even seen great rogue tanks that did it through verbals taunt and great dodging. its true that not every class could play every single role it isnt a closed off as you try to make it sound. In a different light, computer based games can only do what it is program to do so by this very nature it is very limited.
There is no doubt AI will always be defeated sooner or later since a) it doesn't evolve and b) it is there to be defeated in first place.
But one can avoid that the same battle always run the exactly the same steps by adding some randomness.
Having the ability to predict who the mobs are going to attack pretty much 100% of the time and making anyone but the person built to sustain the damage 100% of the time die with every sneeze isn't helping it.
I guess it is a question of how you split the resources (damage, healing, defense) between the players.
The traditional way (for play outside open world levelling and questing) is 100% for you, 0% (or trivial amount) for the rest.
It also pretty much removes the need for CC, unless specific mechanics require it - why are you going to bring something that slows down an enemy if that enemy is going to hit the tank that is designed to sustain damage anyway and if the mob is actually moving towards the healer or a dps you are dead anyway
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I think your right in most games now a days that healing and support are clumped together but in eq they were not.
Chanters were about as pure support as you can get. Their damage was next to nothing but people felt they were necassary for groups. why crowd control buffs, de buffs charm stuns. chanters didnt tank, they certainly didnt heal and since they were so busy with cc during pulls they hardly dps ie they fit into the support role.
Bards in eq were different part of this group since alot of people depended on them for pulling mobs and crowd control, their songs also fit the buff debuff but they could swing a sword around pretty much earning the jack of all trades master of none title. you didnt ask bard to tank to main heal or for their dps.
So in most game i will say there are 3 roles but in eq there were 4,
I will say this - that cc is not need in wow but was essential in eq. a good percentage of the classes didnt not have it and it was very easy to get overrun. This in one respect i will say that eq was much kinder to magic using classes over melee ones
If you have a guy in a plate armour who rushes in first smacking those gobos on the head, thats damn close to a tank in my eyes. As a GM you think about how the enemy will react:
'Ok that little gobo at the back is he going to shoot at the big guy in plate slicing his boss in two, or maybe the little human at the back drawing a bow?' Thats aggro for you.
The guy in front is just prone to take more damage, being a melee character that is. Armor doesn't make a tank. Its tanking that makes a tank and manipulating aggro is a very important part of that.
I'd also like to point out that there was no shooting into melee in the PnP games I played. The tanking in MMOs is perverse. It has very little to do with PnP combat. Very few MMOs have body blocking (very resource intesive this) and almost all of them allow shooting into melee without any penalties or chance friendly fire.
Manipulating aggro is a cop out to offer a simplified combat with as little resources as possible. Yes, its a game, and yes some people enjoy it; however it has no equivalent in any fiction or reality. It doesn't really emulate anything. You do not take or hold your enemies' attention by shouting insults - don't be daft. You do it by being a threat, forcing an engagement.
That's how it works in PvP, against opponents who can think.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I'd say back in Pen and Paper but its existed WAY before that. Back in medieval combat the concept existed in that lines would often have shield baring individuals meant to 'tank' the damage, providing cover and charging forward to take 'agro' of sorts while the 'dps' would be those archers or others at arms supporting from behind. Healers didn't really exist as much in RL, though they did come in play afterwards.
Its quite odd I suppose to consider it that way, but its just a natural tendency for combat. In a way, we all undergo all three roles ourselves as we will tank (defensive means of protecting ourself, naturally we will defend ourself before attacking), dps (forgoing those defenses to strike out), and heal/support (essencially after fighting or even during, we will tend to do what we can for a wound, weather its holding it or adjusting in some way to compensate for it, often times when 'tanking' the damage isn't needed.
Now, if its to philosophical or whatever you might want to consider it, just take in consideration it existed during pen and paper. It exists because its in our nature and logically its something any form of combat should consider. Without the trinity things quickly become a mess (case in point Guild wars 2) and it starts to become quite chaotic. While you can do things to balance it out and make it plausible, it just shifts 'how' those roles are done in group in a different manor. GW2 which tries to preach out of the trinity tries to make up for this by essencially filling that gap with CC, which while ignoring the flaws the system has, basically fills in tanking by having the mob 'distracted' from them, much like a tank would.
@PKJack: Going off your 2nd and last point, Heal/support typically is clumped together since they are one in the same. Yes, they do fill 'different' roles and both are needed, but essencially they are 'two peas in a pod' with healing just really being a glorified form of support. As for PnP with tactics, its very true but its essencially the same thing. The 'bruiser' melee types acted as tanks but without agro tables, instead relying on tactical placement in order to protect allies and provide that 'tanking' for the group. Its how 'agro' essencially works in those games which I can see being somehow done in an MMO at some point, but would still make them 'tanks'.
You are talking about organized armies.
But if morale went down the organization disapeared.
And once the combat started being hand to hand it was a chaotic mess.
Then there was artillery
Lastly, if tanking is so natural, why doesn't it happen in PvP?
Maybe because tanking is in fact a result of weak colision detection and abusing predictable AI.
The GW2 mess is only a mess to the eyes of those untrained and used to have the mobs happily wacking at a predictable target - once you know what is happening you can see that the mesmer casted a reflection bubble on the boss the moment is about to create a devastating projectile attack, or see the guardian sacrifice its virtue to grant aegis or even see the elementalist shif attunements to water to remove a condition from the party.
Hand again we are messing up the roles with the holy trinity.
The holy trinity is a way to execut the roles that leadto a certain playstyle.
Tank isn't defense.
Mage isn't damage.
Cleric isn't heal.
In fact heal is just a form of defense and taunting/threath is a form of crowd control.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
If you have a guy in a plate armour who rushes in first smacking those gobos on the head, thats damn close to a tank in my eyes. As a GM you think about how the enemy will react:
'Ok that little gobo at the back is he going to shoot at the big guy in plate slicing his boss in two, or maybe the little human at the back drawing a bow?' Thats aggro for you.
The guy in front is just prone to take more damage, being a melee character that is. Armor doesn't make a tank. Its tanking that makes a tank and manipulating aggro is a very important part of that.
I'd also like to point out that there was no shooting into melee in the PnP games I played. The tanking in MMOs is perverse. It has very little to do with PnP combat. Very few MMOs have body blocking (very resource intesive this) and almost all of them allow shooting into melee without any penalties or chance friendly fire.
Manipulating aggro is a cop out to offer a simplified combat with as little resources as possible. Yes, its a game, and yes some people enjoy it; however it has no equivalent in any fiction or reality. It doesn't really emulate anything. You do not take or hold your enemies' attention by shouting insults - don't be daft. You do it by being a threat, forcing an engagement.
That's how it works in PvP, against opponents who can think.
That isn't completely true - you can provoke someone into fight and send them in a rage.
But that depends of the person and so isn't 100% guranteed.
And you have drums, shouts, songs, displays, symbols, etc, all meant to cause fear and break the enemy morale while boosting yours.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The Trinity is just a lazy solution for making an AI for mobs. Mobs have a secret aggro-list of whom they attack and the players just take advantage of it. It makes fights very static and forces players to use a stereotypical gamestyle without any flexibility.
I remember doing some dungeons in WoW-classic without a dedicated tank and it was a lot of fun, because we had to use all our abilities and to improvise a lot.
WoW in general is a good example for all the disadvantages of the trinity:
stupid gameplay where players do not even have to look at the screen just blindly hitting the same 3 keys over and over again
no opportunity to individualize your character, because in the end you have to play your "role" (how many times did they overhaul the talent-trees?)
balancing-issues in PvP created by powerful healing and tank abilities
problems to form a group (and please do not tell me, that the group-finder is a good solution)
conflicts in guilds, because players are asked to play certain classes with certain roles, they normaly would not choose
a very unrealistic and awful ability called "taunt" - think about it, it never existed before MMOs and it is just bullshit
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
The Trinity is just a lazy solution for making an AI for mobs. Mobs have a secret aggro-list of whom they attack and the players just take advantage of it. It makes fights very static and forces players to use a stereotypical gamestyle without any flexibility.
I remember doing some dungeons in WoW-classic without a dedicated tank and it was a lot of fun, because we had to use all our abilities and to improvise a lot.
WoW in general is a good example for all the disadvantages of the trinity:
stupid gameplay where players do not even have to look at the screen just blindly hitting the same 3 keys over and over again
no opportunity to individualize your character, because in the end you have to play your "role" (how many times did they overhaul the talent-trees?)
balancing-issues in PvP created by powerful healing and tank abilities
problems to form a group (and please do not tell me, that the group-finder is a good solution)
conflicts in guilds, because players are asked to play certain classes with certain roles, they normaly would not choose
a very unrealistic and awful ability called "taunt" - think about it, it never existed before MMOs and it is just bullshit
While I agree with most of what you said, taunting isn't unrealistic.
What is unrealistic is that taunt always work and there is no mobs that just hate dwarfs or humans and so will act as if they taunted him (regardless of role) or some mob that hate some type of magic or some mobs that hate a particular skill/spell.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
That isn't completely true - you can provoke someone into fight and send them in a rage.
But that depends of the person and so isn't 100% guranteed.
And you have drums, shouts, songs, displays, symbols, etc, all meant to cause fear and break the enemy morale while boosting yours.
Seriously? You are proposing that goading someone to attack is a valid tactic. It is wishful at best. And morale game wouldn't be all that great for MMOs. Its not like you can rout player controlled characters in a game. Only way you could do it would be to take control of the player's character for an extended period of time, and that is a big no-no. Morale, in a game, works in a buff/debuff fashion anyway.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
That isn't completely true - you can provoke someone into fight and send them in a rage.
But that depends of the person and so isn't 100% guranteed.
And you have drums, shouts, songs, displays, symbols, etc, all meant to cause fear and break the enemy morale while boosting yours.
Seriously? You are proposing that goading someone to attack is a valid tactic. It is wishful at best. And morale game wouldn't be all that great for MMOs. Its not like you can rout player controlled characters in a game. Only way you could do it would be to take control of the player's character for an extended period of time, and that is a big no-no. Morale, in a game, works in a buff/debuff fashion anyway.
Of course you can goad someone into violence.
Go outside and start calling people names based on their sexual orientation, skin colour, religious beliefs, sports team, ancestral homeland, etc,and see if sooner or later someone or a few someone don't riposte. Heck you can even do it with gestures or drawings.
But you don't even need to - we are in a forum. We have special words for it - flaming, baiting, trolling.
Or in game, by stalking and harassing someone in PvP ganking him all the time and calling noob and whatnot.
Why do you think game tournaments like SC2 forbid communication beyond GG? Or in sports players calling names to each other, pinching them, etc. don't some sports even have players that are specialized into causing rukus?
Even the AI can make you just wish to smash them into pulpy bits..
Any mob that make annoying noises, CC you constantly, make your abilities harder to use, dodge your attacks, even if it isn't the guy dealing the most damage to you can make you focus on them.
Do you play GW2? Princess dolls were a pain in the ass, screaming and casting confusion on you.
It is possible and could be acceptable in RPGs if it wasn't all the time and if it wasn't based on someone being able to reduce the damage to nothing. But as a factor alongside many, sure why not?
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Go outside and start calling people names based on their sexual orientation, skin colour, religious beliefs, sports team, ancestral homeland, etc,and see if sooner or later someone or a few someone don't riposte. Heck you can even do it with gestures or drawings.
That reminds me of this one time, in college, when my buddy and I got into a fight with this huge body-builder in a bar off campus.
The guy beat on me for 5 minutes straight while I made fun of his mother -- I was really drunk so I didn't feel it until the next day. Meanwhile, my buddy broke 17(!) beer bottles over the guy's head while his back was turned. Eventually, one of the bottles knocked him out cold. He never even turned around to see who was hitting him because my insults were that mean.
Go outside and start calling people names based on their sexual orientation, skin colour, religious beliefs, sports team, ancestral homeland, etc,and see if sooner or later someone or a few someone don't riposte. Heck you can even do it with gestures or drawings.
That reminds me of this one time, in college, when my buddy and I got into a fight with this huge body-builder in a bar off campus.
The guy beat on me for 5 minutes straight while I made fun of his mother -- I was really drunk so I didn't feel it until the next day. Meanwhile, my buddy broke 17(!) beer bottles over the guy's head while his back was turned. Eventually, one of the bottles knocked him out cold. He never even turned around to see who was hitting him because my insults were that mean.
Okay, that never happened. To anyone. Ever.
That is what happens when you have 1 tank that deal low damage, 1 tank that deal slighty more damage and a dot dps.
Of course the guy didn't turn since he wasn't even noticing the bottles.
That is a problem with tanks, they can take a ridiculous amout of damage compared to anyone else - the first bottle should make him dizzy your and draw aggro to your friend.
Or maybe he just had his bike helmet on.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
as a person who has tasted more RTS than MMOs, i would say that an strategic approach is necessary, okai we can come with the idea of the infantry/chivalry/archery but in the battlefield (specially if you're playing something akin to the medieval fantasy warfare) you would have to deal not only with a basic trinity, but also those who boost your morale, the siegers, and other roles for a battlefield.
now i expect an idiot to come with the excuse of "yeah we need things like chefs and medics in the battlefield", and the answer for me is "depends on the realism", now if you want to stay with the same boring 3 way system, well there's plenty of themepark mmos there. if you want something middle grounded we have Lineage II or Aion. but if you want to see a real battle with lots of people i would say we need a new MMO, something akin to EVE Online, i mean, a huge unified shard, capable of keeping hundreds of players in a single huge area, a role system which allows to have several units on the battlefield (like in a fleet).
now then we can talk about expanding or kicking out the trinity. but i bet we wont see that in a loooooong time, why?, because, "EVE is a niche game, and most people dont want to play it, its so hard and i dont get hand holded, players are mean to me and i dont know which way choose because i only know to kill rats in quests and receive blue armor until i reach max level to do dungeons for months until i have enough gear to grind battlegrounds in order to reach whatever PvP bullshit exist"
and so we have to deal with such laziness, at least Lineage II has castle sieges right?, the problem with lineage was the grind and the lack of things to do (since you had to grind mobs for mats, which only the dwarves could use for crafting). the rest was combat, and i think it was good group oriented, one player pulling all the mobs in a chain, some of us killing them, the others keeping the guy alive and buffing the whole party.
the point i want to get is, "if you want to be realistic, go for a system which allows every player to be active part of the battle. but if you want to just allow people to do childish battles, then go for a trinity system"
The trinity is simply the natural selection of battle tactics. In order to keep the game challenging for the trinity all the less effective ways of playing were foolishly abandoned to fend for themselves. Only in recent days will it be possible to leave the trinity behind as it's use came from our lack of technology and extremely crude game design. In the next step the trinity will fall apart in the face of people who don't get hit and can actively protect each other from enemies then heal when the encounter is over. Ambushing, running away, attacking from outside the enemies range or disrupting their teamwork. With enough skill all this and much much more will become possible, but only when we move beyond this dying stage of our gaming history.
If a butterfly learnt to speak, to live in human society, paid its bills, had a job, lived in a fancy house and married a human, is it human?
Now what if that same butterfly knew how to write code better than any human and had years of experience in the game industry, would that make it a game designer?
If u wouldn't let a construction worker design your house, then why let a programmer design your world?
The holy trinity is as old as mankind. Look at any army. Warriors, damage dealers, and healers.
I do like the 'chefs' idea posted above, lol. I think logistics would be a cool aspect to add to an MMO. No free lunch, so to speak. Someone has to gather/grow/cultivate or else characters starve to death.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
D&D, while you may not call it a trinity, the mechanics and party make up used it for the most part. Someone usually had to make the cleric, even if no one wanted to play the cleric a lot of the time....You didn't generally run around with a party of wizards and hope that none of them would get hit or need healed.
The MMO trinity was made, imo, to try to simulate PnP D&D, and the party/dungeon aspects/challenges.
Where MMOs have largly failed to simulate PnP is the need for the other classes, like a trap finding thief, characters having basic skills, like knowledge trees and such....Sure some systems are in games, but they do not really copy the spirit of it. The closest to this, that I have played, is probably old UO.
Like pretty well everything in MMORPGs these days, the "trinity" has become an institution with conventional formulaic implementations that hardly vary from one release to the next. That is the bad part because we're tired of the same old taunt to grab all the aggro, heal the tank and spank them down nonsense.
But from the earliest days of D&D there has always been an attemp to have the best armored character with the most HPs be at the front, a healer healing whoever needs it and a squishy DPSer doing the bulk of the damage. The main difference was that in the old days encounters were not guaranteed to always work out that way. Most encounteres required the squishy mage to occasionally stop DPSing and avoid damage through CC, escape mechanics or both. "Aggro" was typically gained through damaging the mobs one by one and getting their attention that way. Healing was less routine and more of an emergency measure but healers also dealt damage primarily.
Grabbing attention, healing and dealing damage have always been there, but the modern trinity as implemented in WOW and all its spawn of clones is a silly perversion of a much more interesting an fluid older system.
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Since this side-discussion seemed to be derailing a thread, I thought I'd create a new one specifically for this.
So, the Trinity.
Did this start with MMOs or was it created back with pen n paper Dungeons n Dragons some twenty plus years ago?
The trinity, as I understand it, is the tank/dps/healer combination used in most modern MMORPGS.
For the Trinity to exist, there needs to exist game mechanics of "Aggro" and "Taunt". These, as far as I know, never existed as game mechanics in old pen n paper Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks. So even though you may have used tactics similar, it was not in fact the Trinity.
1. Unclear only to those that were not able to get their heads out of the tiny little box it was placed in by MMO companies unable to think differently. The holy trinity was one of the worst ideas in RPG history, thank you D&D."
Grimal:
"What??? DnD? The trinity was created by the modern MMO. There was no trinity in DnD."
JTCGS:
"Are you freaking serious....The first MMORPG with Graphics was NeverWinter Nights Online back in 1991, it had the holy trinity which Meridian 59 used in 1996 and EverQuest which is D&D with another name...wowzers.
Original D&D Black Box had 3 classes. Cleric (Healer), Fighter (tank), Mage(DPS).
It wasnt until Greyhawk was released that other classes started
to appear, Greyhawk brought the Theif (another DPS) and the Paladin (tank/healer). it wasnt until the player handbook came out that the first non-trinity class was created...the BARD.
Everything else all falls into the trinity catagory BECAUSE they are taken from D&D.
/fighter/berserker/avenger/barbarian = dps
paladin = tank/healer
warrior/warlord/ardent = tank/dps
Warden/batlemaid/swordmage = tank
ranger/scout = dps
theif/rogue = dps
wizard/mage/elementalist/necro/warlock = dps
cleric/priest = healer
Druid/shaman/monk = healer/dps"
Grimal:
"Wow. Ok, first off, DPS stands for damage per second. Combat in DnD was never based on real time. There were turns or rounds, so how could it have been Damage Per Second? It couldn't have been!
The Trinity was developed back with the first gen of MMOs (EQ 1). Made up of the Tank, Healer and DPS. DnD never had such a term for this combat style because it didn't come into play until the MMO!!
True each class was based off an archetype, healer, warrior, etc, but the actual term trinity as we use it now was coined by and for the MMO genre.
Please, show me anywhere in any of the pre-MMO genre DnD books where it specifically states the trinity. You'd be hard pressed.
The only trinity you will possibly find mentioned is that of the three core books: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual...but those referred to the three books, not the Tank/DPS/Healer trinity you are talking about.
Second, EQ 1 may be a fantasy based online RPG but it is not Dungeons and Dragons.
I can't believe I am actually needing to post this. Did you even play Dungeons and Dragons PNP?"
Vorthanion:
"No, tabletop definitely had the trinity. Wizards / Sorcerors were the damage classes. Fighters / Paladins / Rangers were the meat shields and protectors of the mages, always putting themselves between the opponent and the mage. Clerics / Druids were the hybrids who both kicked ass and saved the group's bacon with well placed heals. Thieves were the melee damage class and trap experts. I never played a campaign that didn't have at least three of the above archetypes as campaigns couldn't be completed without them.
They may not have been labeled as the trinity at the time, but that is exactly what they were. Doesn't matter if combat is real time, turn based or some mix of the two, the point is that you had to have classes that healed, classes that tanked and protected and classes that dealt real damage in order to be successful in campaigns."
Grimal:
"I won't argue that you could play it like that now if you wanted but the trinity refers to the mechanic in MMOs. Again, please show me where it is specifically referred to as "Tank/DPS/Healer" trinity in those books. You can't because the label was created for MMOs. There was no taunt mechanism, either.
Edit: By saying the trinity existed with old pen n paper RPGs of the 70s-80s, you are projecting a 1999 mechanic onto something that predates the very definition of it. If Everquest and the modern MMO never existed, there would be no "trinity" as we know it. You can't go back and attribute it to something that was around 30 or more years before it. You can argue there were elements or roles that beared resemblance to it, and perhaps lent itself to the creation of it some time after but thats about as far as you can go."
Dopple MO:
"This. Trinity as people refer it nowadays is basically: Tank manages aggro, DPS deal damage, Healer keeps everyone alive. I have never seen characters systematically doing aggro management in the pen and paper games I played, because that notion was pretty much non existent."
Volkon:
"Have to agree with Grimal on this one. Never once while playing D&D (I was in the Navy... not a lot to do at night when on a carrier at sea...) did anyone take roles like that. No one ever taunted the boss, no one was a pure healer, etc. It was actually a lot closer to GW2 than WoW."
JTCGS:
"Did you NOT see where I said there was a NeverWinter Night Online MMORPG made back in 1991? Or that it was followed by Meridian 59? Or how about right after that I mentioned EQ being based off them.
D&D gold box games had SPELLS WITH LINGERING EFFECTS AND BLEEDS from melee attacks which would TICK each round of combat, This is where the idea of DAMAGE PER SECOND comes from...YEAH, Meridian 59 had real time combat and thus had DPS before EQ.
The very idea that you are now pretending EQ is not a D&D clone is crazy, the arugment has no meaning other than to argue."
Vorthanion:
"MMOs and their developers don't label their classes as the trinity either, players do. Of course there was taunting in D&D. Not only did my fighters shout epithets at mobs to keep their attention, I also would place myself between them and the physically weaker members of the party which in itself is taunting, forcing the mob to face me and ignore my party. I'm not projecting anything. The mechanic already existed, it's just that no one even gave it a second thought or considered it a bad thing."
Grimal:
"Nice try."
Vorthanion:
"Any more than your pathetic effort."
Grimal:
"The burden of proof resides on you. Your example above just shows a description of a combat encounter. Just because it bears similarity does not mean that the trinity suddenly exists. That's like saying that all green items are equal just because they are green."
Vorthanion:
"Just because you are too blind to see it for what it was or too obstinate to admit you were wrong. Your argument is no different thaI' ve already shot down your whole argument. Others have agreed. If you can't talk nice, avoid discussions."n people who proclaim that homosexuality is a modern issue, all based on the fact that even though it existed in our ancient past, it wasn't labeled as such and therefore it didn't technically exist. The terminology and label may be modern, the idea and practice are not.
By the way, Ms. Knowitall, the burden of proof is required on both sides of an argument and you haven't proven anything yourself."
Grimal:
"I' ve already shot down your whole argument. Others have agreed. If you can't talk nice, avoid discussions."
Vorthanion:
"You haven't shot down anything and one or two agreements doesn't mean anything. You were never nice to begin with, so don't try pretending otherwise. Your post history is replete with sarcasm and baiting. It's I who should have known better than to argue with someone like you."
For me the gamers trinity started long before MMO's or even video games as we know them existed. Back in the late 70ies is really when it took off. Mainly with pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, Runescape, Gurps... Just to name a few. It exploded in the 80ies with the same titles. just more people into them. Back when DRAGON CON was about gaming. Not a pitch for the latest video game. (Sure does tell my age >.<)That said!
The trinity works. Why if im in a mmo I do my best to be in a guild that incorporates that ideology. Why if I am able, I make a character that is able to fulfill any of those three roles. Why there has been a definite change within the mmo industry to offer not only one specific role within a class. Thus Hybrids! Examples of single character trinity. EQ Druids,Beastlords, Shadowknights.. In WOW we have examples of single character trinity as in the Paladin,Shaman and Monk.
Something to think about. The entire base for a group of hardy adventurers to work together and work well always incorporates the trinity. Those players that want the character that has a mix of the trinity can notice this. MMOs in general created Hybrids just for you. In fact I bet it was due to player responses in a game that they obliged with hybrid classes. So does the trinity work? A BIG YES!!! Because even the players DEMAND such.
As such the trinity will always be regardless of whomever thinks it does not... There is no way to avoid the trinity in game combat regardless of which way you try.
Played table top since 1978, so the first boxes of D&D, then computer "rpg" like Ultima serie, then muds and mmo. Trinity is made up by the Soe dev team in EQ. The question is not to know if tank, healer, dps existed, are existing and where, you can reduce everything to taking damage, doing damage and healing. This is not the point of the trinity. Soe made that trio a must to enhance and force social grouping in mmo, this is what trinity is about. It have nothing to do with class or whatever, it is a mechanism made for a purpose. Both the system and the purpose work together.
Also it is totally dump to substitue agro mechanism with a GM. A GM is suposed to role play the creatures, if you are fighting a totally stupid race they will probably attack the closest guy "the tank" if you want to call it that way. But if you had some intelligent creature a GM would be an idiot to not have this creature use his brain and attack the mage first for exemple or whatever is the smartest in the situation. Healing in D&D was a poor mechanism, cleric where dps class, armored in chain with a mace, healing in combat was almost inexistant. People saying the trinity existed in D&D have no clue what they are talking about, they are day dreaming or on heavy drugs.
It looks like there's been a passing reference to the origin of the trinity in mmo's but I don't think I saw anyone go into the actual history of what happened.
The trinity was one of several mmo terms that began in Everquest. Class balance had been poor at release and SOE took a wrecking ball to the whole thing with the release of the Kunark expansion. I have never seen an in-game community turn on its own as fast or as viciously as what happened in the two months after Kunark was released ( hybrids ... those poor bastards). Part of the fallout of the balance mess SOE had made of the game was that three classes were now considered indispensable for every high level group - warrior, cleric, and enchanter with just three spaces left over for everybody else.
The definition of trinity in mmo's have slightly changed over the years since then going from W/C/E (and I guess we will deign to allow a few of you plebians to tag along with us) of Everquest to the modern Tank/Healer/Dps.
Not so fun fact: This was the game that also gave birth the the infamous "working as intended".
So it actually was born from EQ? That was my original assumption as well but I didn't know the specifics of what you pointed out. Anyone else remember this?
I remember it very well because at that period "The" game that was out, Ultima Online was considered as very anti social because it "promoted", for some people, player killing, looting, harassment, anti rp behavior and those things pointed as anti social back then. The Soe team took quiet some time to explain what was new with EQ, and what will change in their system and reduce if not eliminate those so called problems. They took their time to explain why the players should work together because that was what should do massive multiplayer games. I don't think they ever used the word trinity, i'm pretty sure that is a player label in fact or a user word that came later. But the Soe team did describe very well the mechanisms though. I'm sure if you know well the net you could dig the intereviews and such, but honestly it's too deep and i just wouldn't want to do that job myself. Also EQ team did say they used a Mud inspiration for that system where player would use a tank/healer/dps set up naturally in some high end situation, but once more it is pretty obvious that even in this Muds trinity was absent, it was just a player behavior due to extreme situation of combat. Sorry for any language error, i'm pretty tired right now.
Played table top since 1978, so the first boxes of D&D, then computer "rpg" like Ultima serie, then muds and mmo. Trinity is made up by the Soe dev team in EQ. The question is not to know if tank, healer, dps existed, are existing and where, you can reduce everything to taking damage, doing damage and healing. This is not the point of the trinity. Soe made that trio a must to enhance and force social grouping in mmo, this is what trinity is about. It have nothing to do with class or whatever, it is a mechanism made for a purpose. Both the system and the purpose work together.
Also it is totally dump to substitue agro mechanism with a GM. A GM is suposed to role play the creatures, if you are fighting a totally stupid race they will probably attack the closest guy "the tank" if you want to call it that way. But if you had some intelligent creature a GM would be an idiot to not have this creature use his brain and attack the mage first for exemple or whatever is the smartest in the situation. Healing in D&D was a poor mechanism, cleric where dps class, armored in chain with a mace, healing in combat was almost inexistant. People saying the trinity existed in D&D have no clue what they are talking about, they are day dreaming or on heavy drugs.
Actually the trinity existed in console games like Final Fantasy. So sony may have been first to introduce the trinity to a mmo. It existed before mmos! Which is the point! Yes , single player, but player controlled characters. To your situational view with D&D, The GM is not the "player character" but is in all aspects, the world and npcs that fill it. Or the equivalent of! Healing in D&D was situational. Those clerics that preferred not to heal and go combat usually had a rough time(as well as other players with him/her) with a good GM. Some players role played the"Cleric" as it was meant to be by the games class design.
The earliest version of the trinity being required in a video game that I know of for the pc is Wizardry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry which fully incorporated the trinity in its design. As someone who has been a lifetime gamer and worked for SSI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Simulations,_Inc. during the 80ies. I can promise the trinity existed long before Sony and Everquest layed such a claim. As to D&D GM's, you have good GM's and you have bad GM's. They are very similar to mmos! You have bad(poorly made/designed)mmos and you have good mmos. In my view both about the same. Just one didnt have video in front of it!
Seriously? You started a thread about our conversation and dont send me a PM so I can come join in?
MY statement was to thank D&D for the holy trinity because it was the grandfather of the idea. It was. NWNO was the FIRST MMORPG with graphics, it had BLEED and Damage over time spells which ticked with each turn. You could "block" monsters from reaching your characters that were placed towards the back of the line and only a fool would not place heavy armor wearers to the front which made them first tanks. This is where the IDEA came from.
All of this was built on by Meridian 59 which removed the "you control a party" to you control a single character. That game had characters that were all damage, it DID have bleed and tick damage also, making them the first DPSers. It had HEALER classes...and it had heavy armor wearing damage tankers...and they based it all on D&D style classes.
Then came EQ...and no, you SHOULD NOT have left out the part of the conversation where you said EQ was NOT a D&D clone because even the MAKERS OF THE GAME said it was.
Dungeons and Dragons, the father of the idea of RPGs, the CREATOR of the very classes used today and why they are the way they are. Yes, D&D was the creator of the idea of the holy trinity...most of the genre is based on D&D ideas.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Technically speaking, the Trinity in EQ was Tank, Healer, Support (normally someone that could slow). The remaining slots were filled with DPS.
The notion of the Holy Trinity being Tank, Healer, DPS is a aspect of the WoW generation and beyond; basically where the average player doesn't have the attention span to track controls, debuffs, and hastes without a mod
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
Classes didn't come with MMORPG's. And a nice party composition with skills that complement each other always helped with RPG's (also pen and paper ones) before that. But healers being mandatory for group content and the silly aggro magnet mechanics did start with MMORPG's. And this is what makes the MMO-style trinity so annoying imo.
Comments
I'd say back in Pen and Paper but its existed WAY before that. Back in medieval combat the concept existed in that lines would often have shield baring individuals meant to 'tank' the damage, providing cover and charging forward to take 'agro' of sorts while the 'dps' would be those archers or others at arms supporting from behind. Healers didn't really exist as much in RL, though they did come in play afterwards.
Its quite odd I suppose to consider it that way, but its just a natural tendency for combat. In a way, we all undergo all three roles ourselves as we will tank (defensive means of protecting ourself, naturally we will defend ourself before attacking), dps (forgoing those defenses to strike out), and heal/support (essencially after fighting or even during, we will tend to do what we can for a wound, weather its holding it or adjusting in some way to compensate for it, often times when 'tanking' the damage isn't needed.
Now, if its to philosophical or whatever you might want to consider it, just take in consideration it existed during pen and paper. It exists because its in our nature and logically its something any form of combat should consider. Without the trinity things quickly become a mess (case in point Guild wars 2) and it starts to become quite chaotic. While you can do things to balance it out and make it plausible, it just shifts 'how' those roles are done in group in a different manor. GW2 which tries to preach out of the trinity tries to make up for this by essencially filling that gap with CC, which while ignoring the flaws the system has, basically fills in tanking by having the mob 'distracted' from them, much like a tank would.
@PKJack: Going off your 2nd and last point, Heal/support typically is clumped together since they are one in the same. Yes, they do fill 'different' roles and both are needed, but essencially they are 'two peas in a pod' with healing just really being a glorified form of support. As for PnP with tactics, its very true but its essencially the same thing. The 'bruiser' melee types acted as tanks but without agro tables, instead relying on tactical placement in order to protect allies and provide that 'tanking' for the group. Its how 'agro' essencially works in those games which I can see being somehow done in an MMO at some point, but would still make them 'tanks'.
There is no doubt AI will always be defeated sooner or later since a) it doesn't evolve and b) it is there to be defeated in first place.
But one can avoid that the same battle always run the exactly the same steps by adding some randomness.
Having the ability to predict who the mobs are going to attack pretty much 100% of the time and making anyone but the person built to sustain the damage 100% of the time die with every sneeze isn't helping it.
I guess it is a question of how you split the resources (damage, healing, defense) between the players.
The traditional way (for play outside open world levelling and questing) is 100% for you, 0% (or trivial amount) for the rest.
It also pretty much removes the need for CC, unless specific mechanics require it - why are you going to bring something that slows down an enemy if that enemy is going to hit the tank that is designed to sustain damage anyway and if the mob is actually moving towards the healer or a dps you are dead anyway
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I think your right in most games now a days that healing and support are clumped together but in eq they were not.
Chanters were about as pure support as you can get. Their damage was next to nothing but people felt they were necassary for groups. why crowd control buffs, de buffs charm stuns. chanters didnt tank, they certainly didnt heal and since they were so busy with cc during pulls they hardly dps ie they fit into the support role.
Bards in eq were different part of this group since alot of people depended on them for pulling mobs and crowd control, their songs also fit the buff debuff but they could swing a sword around pretty much earning the jack of all trades master of none title. you didnt ask bard to tank to main heal or for their dps.
So in most game i will say there are 3 roles but in eq there were 4,
The guy in front is just prone to take more damage, being a melee character that is. Armor doesn't make a tank. Its tanking that makes a tank and manipulating aggro is a very important part of that.
I'd also like to point out that there was no shooting into melee in the PnP games I played. The tanking in MMOs is perverse. It has very little to do with PnP combat. Very few MMOs have body blocking (very resource intesive this) and almost all of them allow shooting into melee without any penalties or chance friendly fire.
Manipulating aggro is a cop out to offer a simplified combat with as little resources as possible. Yes, its a game, and yes some people enjoy it; however it has no equivalent in any fiction or reality. It doesn't really emulate anything. You do not take or hold your enemies' attention by shouting insults - don't be daft. You do it by being a threat, forcing an engagement.
That's how it works in PvP, against opponents who can think.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
You are talking about organized armies.
But if morale went down the organization disapeared.
And once the combat started being hand to hand it was a chaotic mess.
Then there was artillery
Lastly, if tanking is so natural, why doesn't it happen in PvP?
Maybe because tanking is in fact a result of weak colision detection and abusing predictable AI.
The GW2 mess is only a mess to the eyes of those untrained and used to have the mobs happily wacking at a predictable target - once you know what is happening you can see that the mesmer casted a reflection bubble on the boss the moment is about to create a devastating projectile attack, or see the guardian sacrifice its virtue to grant aegis or even see the elementalist shif attunements to water to remove a condition from the party.
Hand again we are messing up the roles with the holy trinity.
The holy trinity is a way to execut the roles that leadto a certain playstyle.
Tank isn't defense.
Mage isn't damage.
Cleric isn't heal.
In fact heal is just a form of defense and taunting/threath is a form of crowd control.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
That isn't completely true - you can provoke someone into fight and send them in a rage.
But that depends of the person and so isn't 100% guranteed.
And you have drums, shouts, songs, displays, symbols, etc, all meant to cause fear and break the enemy morale while boosting yours.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The Trinity is just a lazy solution for making an AI for mobs. Mobs have a secret aggro-list of whom they attack and the players just take advantage of it. It makes fights very static and forces players to use a stereotypical gamestyle without any flexibility.
I remember doing some dungeons in WoW-classic without a dedicated tank and it was a lot of fun, because we had to use all our abilities and to improvise a lot.
WoW in general is a good example for all the disadvantages of the trinity:
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
While I agree with most of what you said, taunting isn't unrealistic.
What is unrealistic is that taunt always work and there is no mobs that just hate dwarfs or humans and so will act as if they taunted him (regardless of role) or some mob that hate some type of magic or some mobs that hate a particular skill/spell.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Seriously? You are proposing that goading someone to attack is a valid tactic. It is wishful at best. And morale game wouldn't be all that great for MMOs. Its not like you can rout player controlled characters in a game. Only way you could do it would be to take control of the player's character for an extended period of time, and that is a big no-no. Morale, in a game, works in a buff/debuff fashion anyway.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Of course you can goad someone into violence.
Go outside and start calling people names based on their sexual orientation, skin colour, religious beliefs, sports team, ancestral homeland, etc,and see if sooner or later someone or a few someone don't riposte. Heck you can even do it with gestures or drawings.
But you don't even need to - we are in a forum. We have special words for it - flaming, baiting, trolling.
Or in game, by stalking and harassing someone in PvP ganking him all the time and calling noob and whatnot.
Why do you think game tournaments like SC2 forbid communication beyond GG? Or in sports players calling names to each other, pinching them, etc. don't some sports even have players that are specialized into causing rukus?
Even the AI can make you just wish to smash them into pulpy bits..
Any mob that make annoying noises, CC you constantly, make your abilities harder to use, dodge your attacks, even if it isn't the guy dealing the most damage to you can make you focus on them.
Do you play GW2? Princess dolls were a pain in the ass, screaming and casting confusion on you.
It is possible and could be acceptable in RPGs if it wasn't all the time and if it wasn't based on someone being able to reduce the damage to nothing. But as a factor alongside many, sure why not?
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
That reminds me of this one time, in college, when my buddy and I got into a fight with this huge body-builder in a bar off campus.
The guy beat on me for 5 minutes straight while I made fun of his mother -- I was really drunk so I didn't feel it until the next day. Meanwhile, my buddy broke 17(!) beer bottles over the guy's head while his back was turned. Eventually, one of the bottles knocked him out cold. He never even turned around to see who was hitting him because my insults were that mean.
Okay, that never happened. To anyone. Ever.
That is what happens when you have 1 tank that deal low damage, 1 tank that deal slighty more damage and a dot dps.
Of course the guy didn't turn since he wasn't even noticing the bottles.
That is a problem with tanks, they can take a ridiculous amout of damage compared to anyone else - the first bottle should make him dizzy your and draw aggro to your friend.
Or maybe he just had his bike helmet on.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
as a person who has tasted more RTS than MMOs, i would say that an strategic approach is necessary, okai we can come with the idea of the infantry/chivalry/archery but in the battlefield (specially if you're playing something akin to the medieval fantasy warfare) you would have to deal not only with a basic trinity, but also those who boost your morale, the siegers, and other roles for a battlefield.
now i expect an idiot to come with the excuse of "yeah we need things like chefs and medics in the battlefield", and the answer for me is "depends on the realism", now if you want to stay with the same boring 3 way system, well there's plenty of themepark mmos there. if you want something middle grounded we have Lineage II or Aion. but if you want to see a real battle with lots of people i would say we need a new MMO, something akin to EVE Online, i mean, a huge unified shard, capable of keeping hundreds of players in a single huge area, a role system which allows to have several units on the battlefield (like in a fleet).
now then we can talk about expanding or kicking out the trinity. but i bet we wont see that in a loooooong time, why?, because, "EVE is a niche game, and most people dont want to play it, its so hard and i dont get hand holded, players are mean to me and i dont know which way choose because i only know to kill rats in quests and receive blue armor until i reach max level to do dungeons for months until i have enough gear to grind battlegrounds in order to reach whatever PvP bullshit exist"
and so we have to deal with such laziness, at least Lineage II has castle sieges right?, the problem with lineage was the grind and the lack of things to do (since you had to grind mobs for mats, which only the dwarves could use for crafting). the rest was combat, and i think it was good group oriented, one player pulling all the mobs in a chain, some of us killing them, the others keeping the guy alive and buffing the whole party.
the point i want to get is, "if you want to be realistic, go for a system which allows every player to be active part of the battle. but if you want to just allow people to do childish battles, then go for a trinity system"
If a butterfly learnt to speak, to live in human society, paid its bills, had a job, lived in a fancy house and married a human, is it human?
Now what if that same butterfly knew how to write code better than any human and had years of experience in the game industry, would that make it a game designer?
If u wouldn't let a construction worker design your house, then why let a programmer design your world?
The holy trinity is as old as mankind. Look at any army. Warriors, damage dealers, and healers.
I do like the 'chefs' idea posted above, lol. I think logistics would be a cool aspect to add to an MMO. No free lunch, so to speak. Someone has to gather/grow/cultivate or else characters starve to death.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
In short....before MMO.
D&D, while you may not call it a trinity, the mechanics and party make up used it for the most part. Someone usually had to make the cleric, even if no one wanted to play the cleric a lot of the time....You didn't generally run around with a party of wizards and hope that none of them would get hit or need healed.
The MMO trinity was made, imo, to try to simulate PnP D&D, and the party/dungeon aspects/challenges.
Where MMOs have largly failed to simulate PnP is the need for the other classes, like a trap finding thief, characters having basic skills, like knowledge trees and such....Sure some systems are in games, but they do not really copy the spirit of it. The closest to this, that I have played, is probably old UO.
Like pretty well everything in MMORPGs these days, the "trinity" has become an institution with conventional formulaic implementations that hardly vary from one release to the next. That is the bad part because we're tired of the same old taunt to grab all the aggro, heal the tank and spank them down nonsense.
But from the earliest days of D&D there has always been an attemp to have the best armored character with the most HPs be at the front, a healer healing whoever needs it and a squishy DPSer doing the bulk of the damage. The main difference was that in the old days encounters were not guaranteed to always work out that way. Most encounteres required the squishy mage to occasionally stop DPSing and avoid damage through CC, escape mechanics or both. "Aggro" was typically gained through damaging the mobs one by one and getting their attention that way. Healing was less routine and more of an emergency measure but healers also dealt damage primarily.
Grabbing attention, healing and dealing damage have always been there, but the modern trinity as implemented in WOW and all its spawn of clones is a silly perversion of a much more interesting an fluid older system.
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For me the gamers trinity started long before MMO's or even video games as we know them existed. Back in the late 70ies is really when it took off. Mainly with pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, Runescape, Gurps... Just to name a few. It exploded in the 80ies with the same titles. just more people into them. Back when DRAGON CON was about gaming. Not a pitch for the latest video game. (Sure does tell my age >.<)That said!
The trinity works. Why if im in a mmo I do my best to be in a guild that incorporates that ideology. Why if I am able, I make a character that is able to fulfill any of those three roles. Why there has been a definite change within the mmo industry to offer not only one specific role within a class. Thus Hybrids! Examples of single character trinity. EQ Druids,Beastlords, Shadowknights.. In WOW we have examples of single character trinity as in the Paladin,Shaman and Monk.
Something to think about. The entire base for a group of hardy adventurers to work together and work well always incorporates the trinity. Those players that want the character that has a mix of the trinity can notice this. MMOs in general created Hybrids just for you. In fact I bet it was due to player responses in a game that they obliged with hybrid classes. So does the trinity work? A BIG YES!!! Because even the players DEMAND such.
As such the trinity will always be regardless of whomever thinks it does not... There is no way to avoid the trinity in game combat regardless of which way you try.
xpowderx
Played table top since 1978, so the first boxes of D&D, then computer "rpg" like Ultima serie, then muds and mmo. Trinity is made up by the Soe dev team in EQ. The question is not to know if tank, healer, dps existed, are existing and where, you can reduce everything to taking damage, doing damage and healing. This is not the point of the trinity. Soe made that trio a must to enhance and force social grouping in mmo, this is what trinity is about. It have nothing to do with class or whatever, it is a mechanism made for a purpose. Both the system and the purpose work together.
Also it is totally dump to substitue agro mechanism with a GM. A GM is suposed to role play the creatures, if you are fighting a totally stupid race they will probably attack the closest guy "the tank" if you want to call it that way. But if you had some intelligent creature a GM would be an idiot to not have this creature use his brain and attack the mage first for exemple or whatever is the smartest in the situation. Healing in D&D was a poor mechanism, cleric where dps class, armored in chain with a mace, healing in combat was almost inexistant. People saying the trinity existed in D&D have no clue what they are talking about, they are day dreaming or on heavy drugs.
I remember it very well because at that period "The" game that was out, Ultima Online was considered as very anti social because it "promoted", for some people, player killing, looting, harassment, anti rp behavior and those things pointed as anti social back then. The Soe team took quiet some time to explain what was new with EQ, and what will change in their system and reduce if not eliminate those so called problems. They took their time to explain why the players should work together because that was what should do massive multiplayer games. I don't think they ever used the word trinity, i'm pretty sure that is a player label in fact or a user word that came later. But the Soe team did describe very well the mechanisms though. I'm sure if you know well the net you could dig the intereviews and such, but honestly it's too deep and i just wouldn't want to do that job myself. Also EQ team did say they used a Mud inspiration for that system where player would use a tank/healer/dps set up naturally in some high end situation, but once more it is pretty obvious that even in this Muds trinity was absent, it was just a player behavior due to extreme situation of combat. Sorry for any language error, i'm pretty tired right now.
Actually the trinity existed in console games like Final Fantasy. So sony may have been first to introduce the trinity to a mmo. It existed before mmos! Which is the point! Yes , single player, but player controlled characters. To your situational view with D&D, The GM is not the "player character" but is in all aspects, the world and npcs that fill it. Or the equivalent of! Healing in D&D was situational. Those clerics that preferred not to heal and go combat usually had a rough time(as well as other players with him/her) with a good GM. Some players role played the"Cleric" as it was meant to be by the games class design.
The earliest version of the trinity being required in a video game that I know of for the pc is Wizardry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry which fully incorporated the trinity in its design. As someone who has been a lifetime gamer and worked for SSI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Simulations,_Inc. during the 80ies. I can promise the trinity existed long before Sony and Everquest layed such a claim. As to D&D GM's, you have good GM's and you have bad GM's. They are very similar to mmos! You have bad(poorly made/designed)mmos and you have good mmos. In my view both about the same. Just one didnt have video in front of it!
Seriously? You started a thread about our conversation and dont send me a PM so I can come join in?
MY statement was to thank D&D for the holy trinity because it was the grandfather of the idea. It was. NWNO was the FIRST MMORPG with graphics, it had BLEED and Damage over time spells which ticked with each turn. You could "block" monsters from reaching your characters that were placed towards the back of the line and only a fool would not place heavy armor wearers to the front which made them first tanks. This is where the IDEA came from.
All of this was built on by Meridian 59 which removed the "you control a party" to you control a single character. That game had characters that were all damage, it DID have bleed and tick damage also, making them the first DPSers. It had HEALER classes...and it had heavy armor wearing damage tankers...and they based it all on D&D style classes.
Then came EQ...and no, you SHOULD NOT have left out the part of the conversation where you said EQ was NOT a D&D clone because even the MAKERS OF THE GAME said it was.
Dungeons and Dragons, the father of the idea of RPGs, the CREATOR of the very classes used today and why they are the way they are. Yes, D&D was the creator of the idea of the holy trinity...most of the genre is based on D&D ideas.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Technically speaking, the Trinity in EQ was Tank, Healer, Support (normally someone that could slow). The remaining slots were filled with DPS.
The notion of the Holy Trinity being Tank, Healer, DPS is a aspect of the WoW generation and beyond; basically where the average player doesn't have the attention span to track controls, debuffs, and hastes without a mod
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
Classes didn't come with MMORPG's. And a nice party composition with skills that complement each other always helped with RPG's (also pen and paper ones) before that. But healers being mandatory for group content and the silly aggro magnet mechanics did start with MMORPG's. And this is what makes the MMO-style trinity so annoying imo.