Trinity works fine for people who like being dedicated healers. The problem is that it works badly for everyone else, as not enough people like being pure healers to match what content tends to demand, so everyone else either spends a lot of time waiting around for a healer or else avoids group content entirely.
If a game needs half of the players to take role A and half to take role B in order to work, and 60% prefer A while 40% prefer B, then the game doesn't work. Trinity combat has that problem intrinsically, and if it weren't a shortage of healers, it would be a shortage of something else.
It's not that role A is intrinsically more fun than role B. It's that if a game requires players to prefer particular roles in particular proportions, and players don't happen to prefer those roles at the rate that developers arbitrarily decree, then grouping fails in that game.
Tank has always been the role requiring the most skill and game knowledge. Healers are still mostly about button mashing. A way overrated role in my opinion.
A mediocre healer will get you through the dungeon if the tank is good. A mediocre tank will make your experience a pain, even if the healer is good, because the tank's job isn't about being healed but about controlling the whole fights in a trinity system.
I beg to differ but for a slightly different reason. The reason why tanks and healers are often seen as being on the top of the skill pyramid is because DPS'ers are expected to be idiots. Being a good DPS is just as difficult as being a good tank or healer. But because people expect dps'ers to be crap healers and tanks have a bigger burden. Controlling the fights for instance is easy if the DPS'ers know how to manage aggro, which they should, and if they manage aggro they'll also suffer less damage and thus make it easier for healers as well. And DPS'ers also often ignore abilities which helps them "survive" (defensive and/or self healing) because, again, they're just expected "to hit".
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt. Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
There are negatives to having a mandatory healer/tank in games. Mainly that the Healer gets propelled into a special class of their own because they are required to do content. Wait times to do content becomes half an hour or so for everyone who's not a healer. Because of that, you sometimes get rather nasty people who wish to be worshipped choose that job and who choose to throw around their weight and abuse other players. I prefer Guild Wars 2's system of no mandatory healers, just accept whoever comes along and if they're an ass - you can boot them.
Funny because I kinda had the opposite experience from the OP over the years, in that healers rarely get the respect they deserve and more often than not are held as the main offenders if something goes wrong. You're basically the unsung hero - if everything is going as it should people forget you're even there, but the moment something goes wrong you are the main culprit it all. Also, something you share with the tank is that you're a vital part of any group and without you someone just pulled the party stopper on everyone else.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Personally I feel that healers are probably the hardest class to play, and in many ways also the least rewarding. You get to keep everyone alive, watching 5 targets on top of needing to know when the fight needs special attention on top of doing the mechanics, and if you slip up you generally get shouted at. You pretty much have to have healed a dungeon in order to be allowed to heal a dungeon, so to say. Or at least have read up on every encounter.
Meanwhile tanks need the same kind of pre-knowledge, it almost feels as if healers/tanks aren't allowed to learn anymore in todays MMO society, people expect them to know everything up front already. They need to be more geared usually, though they don't have to do a ton of work over dps. They often are subject to different mechanics, but most games seem to give them gratuitous threat building abilities so that threat isn't really an issue.
Meanwhile DPS can die all they like and blame others in some games, only need to do the waltz whilst spamming their rotation as fast as they can, because the tank is expected to keep aggro and stay up, and the healer is expected to smooth over any screwups the group does.
Granted this is my personal, perhaps slightly jaded opinion, but in todays "don't talk, just kill stuff already" LFG experience, this seems to be what it boils down to. Which is probably why I a) really should find me a nice guild on any upcoming MMOs I play and b) will probably pick up tanking. I tried healing once and it really is a bit too much for my taste, but tanking I tried out and I like the taste of it.
We think alike, Psistorm! Feel the same way about how it's almost verboten for a new player to dare try to level up their first character as a tank or healer. It's basically expected that your tank is a veteran with intimate knowledge of every encounter, and your healer is equally as skilled - even where the very lowest-level instances are concerned. In such DPS-heavy games where new tanks and healers are often sorely needed, the attitudes in PUGs are enough to turn a lot of people away from giving those roles a fair try.
I feel the same way about finding a nice guild for my next MMO. I almost feel like I need to have the guild picked out before I even fire up the game for the first time, just to ensure a better overall experience.
A rumor is going around that the Healer class is boring; and that everyone else gets the 'fun.' Well let me disagree. My secondary EQ character was a Cleric, and I spent thousands of hours playing him and loved every minute of it.
"boring" and "fun" is subjective.
To me, playing healer is boring. I don't want to spend time keeping others alive. I want to spend my play-time to kill stuff.
A rumor is going around that the Healer class is boring; and that everyone else gets the 'fun.' Well let me disagree. My secondary EQ character was a Cleric, and I spent thousands of hours playing him and loved every minute of it.
1. You get respect from everyone, and appreciation from your group mates
2. You help push the group into more dangerous and lucrative encounters.
3. You employ constant problem solving and decision making; deciding who to heal, when, and for how much. All the while trying to avoid aggro and, if you got it, keeping yourself alive.
4. The consequences of your decisions are high; literally holding the power of life and death.
Although I mention problem solving/decision making third, it is THE reason I loved being a healer.
1. It's fake respect.
2. Bad game design
3. It's not really so hard to heal the tank since they are doing most of the job.
4. Not really after you figure out how to sustain your mana or whatever limits your heals
P.S: Played a friend's healer character in Lineage 2 for 2 hours. My party called me the best healer they've seem. I was bored to hell. Frankly, a tank is a lot more challenging
P.P.S: Just remembered L2 has more than 1 healer types. I was playing a Cardinal/Bishop
This, This, So much this it is not even funny.
Healing is over rated
Tanking is over rated
Trinity is over rated
These things all revolve around artificial difficulty and bad game design. The trinity has had a strangle hold on MMO combat design for the last 14+ years. It is the core of what makes every single MMO feel exactly the same. The sooner the developers dump the trinity the better.
A rumor is going around that the Healer class is boring; and that everyone else gets the 'fun.' Well let me disagree. My secondary EQ character was a Cleric, and I spent thousands of hours playing him and loved every minute of it.
1. You get respect from everyone, and appreciation from your group mates
2. You help push the group into more dangerous and lucrative encounters.
3. You employ constant problem solving and decision making; deciding who to heal, when, and for how much. All the while trying to avoid aggro and, if you got it, keeping yourself alive.
4. The consequences of your decisions are high; literally holding the power of life and death.
Although I mention problem solving/decision making third, it is THE reason I loved being a healer.
1. It's fake respect.
2. Bad game design
3. It's not really so hard to heal the tank since they are doing most of the job.
4. Not really after you figure out how to sustain your mana or whatever limits your heals
P.S: Played a friend's healer character in Lineage 2 for 2 hours. My party called me the best healer they've seem. I was bored to hell. Frankly, a tank is a lot more challenging
P.P.S: Just remembered L2 has more than 1 healer types. I was playing a Cardinal/Bishop
This, This, So much this it is not even funny.
Healing is over rated
Tanking is over rated
Trinity is over rated
These things all revolve around artificial difficulty and bad game design. The trinity has had a strangle hold on MMO combat design for the last 14+ years. It is the core of what makes every single MMO feel exactly the same. The sooner the developers dump the trinity the better.
Yeah, so we can have more games like guildwars 2 where everything is solo gaming with random npc's near you. /facepalm.
The trinity is needed for meaningful mmo combat.[mod edit]
Those who are hating on the healer class, tell us what game you were playing.
If a healer gets wrongly blamed for group deaths, it means the group members are stupid.
I see lots of love for Tanks, but my main character was a tank and it required MUCH less split-second decision making compared to the healer class. Enchanter (cc) was more difficult than tank.
Originally posted by Po_gg ..I'd disagree with OP's "A rumor is going around that the Healer class is boring"
You actually agree with me; and disagree with the rumor (which is the entire point of this thread).
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
Most of the people on this site.. including the mods are anti trinity.
Mention the benefits of trinity; the kids on these forums gang blast you.
Mention it twice; your post gets deleted for "trolling" and you get issued a warning.
Aside from WOW - trinity based games; where your character actually "needed" a group and your character and playstyle actually had value and repercussions have always lasted and maintained a stable "playing and paying" community.
Themepark solo mmos - never last.
But I digress.. Healers are fun - tanks are fun - but first their value is dependent upon a game that actually NEEDS healers and tanks.
I enjoy communal games and I love playing support type roles in such titles. Pen and paper games possess such elements as I feel MMOs should at least support. a multiplayer game is supposed to be in some way, y'know, multiplayer.
This sin't to say the game shouldn't be able to support a more independent approach. I don't often group directly with people unless the game calls for a more cohesive style of play. I do think that even a 'support' class should be capable of independent and effective play.
However, I also think that the benefit of adopting roles and playing as a group should be generally self evident. There's a reason people fight as a unit in real life, even as a two man team when sniping. One person doing everything is all well and good, but it's not the most effective because one person can only do so much at any given moment.
Letting people part out their duties and roles theoretically lets things get done more quickly and more efficiently.
As far as healing itself goes. It's an aspect that I thoroughly enjoy, and something that can provide a great deal of challenge when the game caters to a more aggressive style of play. When things are paced and you rely more on formula than moment to moment skill or strategy, you lose a lot of risk, challenge and reason for any kind of real teamwork past "person A does task A and person B does task B".
Love playing healers. I appreciate it when a good game comes along because it tends to give me more freedom to play such things.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
However, I also think that the benefit of adopting roles and playing as a group should be generally self evident. There's a reason people fight as a unit in real life, even as a two man team when sniping. One person doing everything is all well and good, but it's not the most effective because one person can only do so much at any given moment.
Games are not real life. You can easily take away the player interdependencies in a game. The goal of games is to entertain, and there is no need to mimic real life.
Originally posted by Po_gg ..I'd disagree with OP's "A rumor is going around that the Healer class is boring"
You actually agree with me; and disagree with the rumor (which is the entire point of this thread).
Of course I do agree, but I think it's obvious from my posts (I continued that sentence with "I've always found dps boring. Healing, tank/off-tank, or controlling the fight is much more fun")
What I ment with the above is that I disagree with the quoted rumor in the Orig.Post, hence the brackets.
Games are not real life. You can easily take away the player interdependencies in a game. The goal of games is to entertain, and there is no need to mimic real life.
And that fails to invalidate anything I said. It doesn't even properly address the part you quoted or my post as a whole.
Which entertainingly if anyone reads said post, it addresses the comment you just made.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Games are not real life. You can easily take away the player interdependencies in a game. The goal of games is to entertain, and there is no need to mimic real life.
And that fails to invalidate anything I said. It doesn't even properly address the part you quoted or my post as a whole.
Which entertainingly if anyone reads said post, it addresses the comment you just made.
I am just pointing out that even when people fight as units in real world, there is no need for such design in a video game. Whether it should be done or not depends on the audience and what they think as fun.
Healing stopped being fun in these newer MMO's that treat heals as buffs and side effects of the healer's attacks. Devs need to make sure that that healing classes require a certain amount of skill, timing and experience during combat encounters in order to be effective. This idea that healers do dps to heal their group is ruining a healer's true role.
I always enjoyed playing the role of healer in any MMO.. I stated in EQ as a Druid, then move to Defender in CoH, then WoW with a holy Pally and Priest., then SWTOR .. I currently dabble in GW2 from time to time, but it's just a zergfest and there isn't the feel of playing a role.. At least not the traditional sense.. Bring back roles please
Healing in pvp is a lot of fun, and it allows people to shine and develop their own strategy - more so than scripted encounters. As a healer I took note of talented dpsers and formed our own unit. You are there to make other people look good, and to be the glue that holds the team together.
Originally posted by Geschaefer But I digress.. Healers are fun - tanks are fun - but first their value is dependent upon a game that actually NEEDS healers and tanks.
Agreed, and your post in its entirety is excellent.
Originally posted by Po_gg ...What I ment with the above is that I disagree with the quoted rumor in the Orig.Post, hence the brackets.
Ok now I got it
Originally posted by Deivos I enjoy communal games and I love playing support type roles in such titles. Pen and paper games possess such elements as I feel MMOs should at least support. a multiplayer game is supposed to be in some way, y'know, multiplayer.
/homage
Do you blog, cuz you are one of the few blog-worthy posters I've ever seen.
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
Comments
Trinity works fine for people who like being dedicated healers. The problem is that it works badly for everyone else, as not enough people like being pure healers to match what content tends to demand, so everyone else either spends a lot of time waiting around for a healer or else avoids group content entirely.
If a game needs half of the players to take role A and half to take role B in order to work, and 60% prefer A while 40% prefer B, then the game doesn't work. Trinity combat has that problem intrinsically, and if it weren't a shortage of healers, it would be a shortage of something else.
It's not that role A is intrinsically more fun than role B. It's that if a game requires players to prefer particular roles in particular proportions, and players don't happen to prefer those roles at the rate that developers arbitrarily decree, then grouping fails in that game.
I beg to differ but for a slightly different reason. The reason why tanks and healers are often seen as being on the top of the skill pyramid is because DPS'ers are expected to be idiots. Being a good DPS is just as difficult as being a good tank or healer. But because people expect dps'ers to be crap healers and tanks have a bigger burden. Controlling the fights for instance is easy if the DPS'ers know how to manage aggro, which they should, and if they manage aggro they'll also suffer less damage and thus make it easier for healers as well. And DPS'ers also often ignore abilities which helps them "survive" (defensive and/or self healing) because, again, they're just expected "to hit".
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
There are negatives to having a mandatory healer/tank in games. Mainly that the Healer gets propelled into a special class of their own because they are required to do content. Wait times to do content becomes half an hour or so for everyone who's not a healer. Because of that, you sometimes get rather nasty people who wish to be worshipped choose that job and who choose to throw around their weight and abuse other players. I prefer Guild Wars 2's system of no mandatory healers, just accept whoever comes along and if they're an ass - you can boot them.
We think alike, Psistorm! Feel the same way about how it's almost verboten for a new player to dare try to level up their first character as a tank or healer. It's basically expected that your tank is a veteran with intimate knowledge of every encounter, and your healer is equally as skilled - even where the very lowest-level instances are concerned. In such DPS-heavy games where new tanks and healers are often sorely needed, the attitudes in PUGs are enough to turn a lot of people away from giving those roles a fair try.
I feel the same way about finding a nice guild for my next MMO. I almost feel like I need to have the guild picked out before I even fire up the game for the first time, just to ensure a better overall experience.
While it has never been my thing, I love players who love to play healers.
My YouTube MMO PvP Channel
"boring" and "fun" is subjective.
To me, playing healer is boring. I don't want to spend time keeping others alive. I want to spend my play-time to kill stuff.
healing is boring. If I wanted to play wack a mole I would play wack a mole.
This, This, So much this it is not even funny.
Healing is over rated
Tanking is over rated
Trinity is over rated
These things all revolve around artificial difficulty and bad game design. The trinity has had a strangle hold on MMO combat design for the last 14+ years. It is the core of what makes every single MMO feel exactly the same. The sooner the developers dump the trinity the better.
Yeah, so we can have more games like guildwars 2 where everything is solo gaming with random npc's near you. /facepalm.
The trinity is needed for meaningful mmo combat.[mod edit]
That sounds nice. I don't have to depend on other players for my fun.
"Need" is subjective. I don't need trinity .. you may .. but your preference is not mine.
Those who are hating on the healer class, tell us what game you were playing.
If a healer gets wrongly blamed for group deaths, it means the group members are stupid.
I see lots of love for Tanks, but my main character was a tank and it required MUCH less split-second decision making compared to the healer class. Enchanter (cc) was more difficult than tank.
You actually agree with me; and disagree with the rumor (which is the entire point of this thread).
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
Solo-able games? I don't need to play a healer (which is boring to me), and no healer is needed to help me.
Most of the people on this site.. including the mods are anti trinity.
Mention the benefits of trinity; the kids on these forums gang blast you.
Mention it twice; your post gets deleted for "trolling" and you get issued a warning.
Aside from WOW - trinity based games; where your character actually "needed" a group and your character and playstyle actually had value and repercussions have always lasted and maintained a stable "playing and paying" community.
Themepark solo mmos - never last.
But I digress.. Healers are fun - tanks are fun - but first their value is dependent upon a game that actually NEEDS healers and tanks.
G.E.Schaefer
Played: EQ1. EQ2. FFXI. SWG. Aion. WAR. LOTRO. TabulaRasa. Hellgate London. Diablo 1. Diablo II. Diablo 3. STO. WOW. Vanguard. Guild Wars. Rift. Terra. The Secret World. EVE. Guild Wars 2. Firefall. Neverwinter.
I enjoy communal games and I love playing support type roles in such titles. Pen and paper games possess such elements as I feel MMOs should at least support. a multiplayer game is supposed to be in some way, y'know, multiplayer.
This sin't to say the game shouldn't be able to support a more independent approach. I don't often group directly with people unless the game calls for a more cohesive style of play. I do think that even a 'support' class should be capable of independent and effective play.
However, I also think that the benefit of adopting roles and playing as a group should be generally self evident. There's a reason people fight as a unit in real life, even as a two man team when sniping. One person doing everything is all well and good, but it's not the most effective because one person can only do so much at any given moment.
Letting people part out their duties and roles theoretically lets things get done more quickly and more efficiently.
As far as healing itself goes. It's an aspect that I thoroughly enjoy, and something that can provide a great deal of challenge when the game caters to a more aggressive style of play. When things are paced and you rely more on formula than moment to moment skill or strategy, you lose a lot of risk, challenge and reason for any kind of real teamwork past "person A does task A and person B does task B".
Love playing healers. I appreciate it when a good game comes along because it tends to give me more freedom to play such things.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Games are not real life. You can easily take away the player interdependencies in a game. The goal of games is to entertain, and there is no need to mimic real life.
Of course I do agree, but I think it's obvious from my posts
(I continued that sentence with "I've always found dps boring. Healing, tank/off-tank, or controlling the fight is much more fun")
What I ment with the above is that I disagree with the quoted rumor in the Orig.Post, hence the brackets.
And that fails to invalidate anything I said. It doesn't even properly address the part you quoted or my post as a whole.
Which entertainingly if anyone reads said post, it addresses the comment you just made.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I am just pointing out that even when people fight as units in real world, there is no need for such design in a video game. Whether it should be done or not depends on the audience and what they think as fun.
Again, point addressed in my post you responded to.
Did you even read my post?
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I have to say..
Playing a protection monk In GW1 was amazing.
I hate that guild wars 2 is missing that and think it was a very stupid move.
That style of preventive play is just awesome.
Agreed, and your post in its entirety is excellent.
Ok now I got it
/homage
Do you blog, cuz you are one of the few blog-worthy posters I've ever seen.
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