Originally posted by Konfess Plain and simple, all blame lies with the DPS player base. This style of player typically can’t get along with other classes. They hate relying on healers for heals, buffers for buffs, crafters for gear, controllers for crowd control. When the combat is too complex for them they demand it be dumbed down, like their favorite console action and fps games.
Well not a single thing you're saying here is true about the biggest MMORPG. Certainly other MMORPGs might do things poorly, but in WOW healers are critical, crafted gear is a huge and valuable step, and all the CC/buff skills were layered on top of existing DPS/heal/tank specs, and the game clearly isn't action or FPS combat.
Just spouting a bunch of hate into the air and pretending it's truth doesn't actually make it true. Not even if it's a popular opinion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I am surprised no one mentions it, but the smaller group sizes of most MMOs is a big contributor to the demise of the pure support class. DAOC had 8 person groups, plenty of room for most classes to be useful. (OK, maybe not stealthers)
Most modern MMOs have 5 or less, making the consolidation of more skills on fewer classes more necessary.
At one time I think there was talk of DAOC considering moving up to 10 man groups, but it never materialized.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I miss them too. You can make a pure support builds on most classes in GW2, but it's not likely anyone outside of maybe a dungeon group (which doesn't happen much anymore) would notice and even then it's iffy.
got to play the games to find them, plenty of support classes out there
Those aren't quite support characters as I envision them or the type I'm used to persay, they're more hybrids of dps and healing at most. I don't know about Controllers or Lineage 2, but AoC and Tera don't have pure support classes. Not sure you can consider a sniper a support class, that's high dps even with field control.
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When I think of support classes i think of Buffers and Debuffers and CCrs. Take Everquest 1 for instance. Enchanters (Kept mobs mezzed and slowed and also buffed group with haste). Shaman in EQ 1 also did a bit of the same but specialized in high end buffs and debuffs, not so much CC. WoW originally did have "support"ish classes with CC for Dungeon runs. They faded that out since WoW is a zergfest now.
If you REALLY want to play a support class check out those ones i mentioned in Everquest 1 and 2. They might be outdated but are in HIGH demand in those games. Bards as well!!!!
Rift has support classes but... you don't really feel like your supporting much. Not sure about Age of Conan. Ive tried it but didn't get too far, may give it anything go if it's worth it?
For what I know Support classes are in EVE and are not in EVE at the same time, which is a contradiction, but gaming world is such a Schröedingerian thing that this can happen perfectly.
In EVE we have wars. Not little wars, but what even wars that involves so many people that if that happened in RL iit would be considered an important and big war. So that, we use a lot of Support Ships of many kinds, as Supportive Ship classes are rich and variated and you need to know how to handle one of them or you are just an easy target for the enemy. Of course this Supportive Ships are not in the Frontline, but safe in our rear guard, but anyways, in EVE the rear guard come become crazy in seconds if the enemy has a plan or just is improvising a crazy plan relying on their massively firepower and stubborn fidelity to the EVE laws: "Be bold, troll, destroy, kill and make others life a ruin the whole day" which is one of the EVE best-known mottos.
This Support classes are very refined to the point you can select even the type of damage you want to repair and the way you are going to do this, and it requires skills and real skill, as many are not able to distinguish a Support Ship from a new type of frigate.
So that, if you miss them so much maybe you can join EVE and have a lot of good time and party all night long with us and your foes, who are everywhere. So that, don't think twice!
Originally posted by Konfess Plain and simple, all blame lies with the DPS player base. This style of player typically can’t get along with other classes. They hate relying on healers for heals, buffers for buffs, crafters for gear, controllers for crowd control. When the combat is too complex for them they demand it be dumbed down, like their favorite console action and fps games.
Well not a single thing you're saying here is true about the biggest MMORPG. Certainly other MMORPGs might do things poorly, but in WOW healers are critical, crafted gear is a huge and valuable step, and all the CC/buff skills were layered on top of existing DPS/heal/tank specs, and the game clearly isn't action or FPS combat.
Just spouting a bunch of hate into the air and pretending it's truth doesn't actually make it true. Not even if it's a popular opinion.
I wasn’t talking about WoW, because as you said WoW has Support classes. They may not be in the form you want to see them. I was talking about every other game that doesn’t have support classes. When they were brainstorming features, reading forum posts to get feel for the player base, and talking to gamers at public events. That is what the player base told developers. These aren’t my words of hate, its our fellow gamers.
When devs analyze their game data, what do they all learn? The DPS player typically can’t get along with other classes. This is not an anomaly, this is a recurring trend. Those DPS who can get along with other, that is the anomaly.
Pardon any spelling errors
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Originally posted by Konfess Plain and simple, all blame lies with the DPS player base. This style of player typically can’t get along with other classes. They hate relying on healers for heals, buffers for buffs, crafters for gear, controllers for crowd control. When the combat is too complex for them they demand it be dumbed down, like their favorite console action and fps games.
Well not a single thing you're saying here is true about the biggest MMORPG. Certainly other MMORPGs might do things poorly, but in WOW healers are critical, crafted gear is a huge and valuable step, and all the CC/buff skills were layered on top of existing DPS/heal/tank specs, and the game clearly isn't action or FPS combat.
Just spouting a bunch of hate into the air and pretending it's truth doesn't actually make it true. Not even if it's a popular opinion.
I wasn’t talking about WoW, because as you said WoW has Support classes. They may not be in the form you want to see them. I was talking about every other game that doesn’t have support classes. When they were brainstorming features, reading forum posts to get feel for the player base, and talking to gamers at public events. That is what the player base told developers. These aren’t my words of hate, its our fellow gamers.
When devs analyze their game data, what do they all learn? The DPS player typically can’t get along with other classes. This is not an anomaly, this is a recurring trend. Those DPS who can get along with other, that is the anomaly.
Maybe people don't like support classes because they are played by people who they can't stand and they associate those roles with those people. On top of that, it builds up quite a lot of resentment when they are forced to rely on them. And when the "DPS player base" finally gets a game where they don't have to put up with it anymore, the "support players" open up on the forums complaining "where have the support classes gone", "I bet its because of the DPS player base", so on and so forth...
I don't have a vested interest in this discussion, but imagination is the limit for this kind of stereotyping.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I am surprised no one mentions it, but the smaller group sizes of most MMOs is a big contributor to the demise of the pure support class. DAOC had 8 person groups, plenty of room for most classes to be useful. (OK, maybe not stealthers)
Most modern MMOs have 5 or less, making the consolidation of more skills on fewer classes more necessary.
At one time I think there was talk of DAOC considering moving up to 10 man groups, but it never materialized.
In a smaller group, you don't have the option to specialize as much. Everyone has to pull their own weight. You can't be a one-trick pony. You have to be able to do 2 or 3 things at least.
That thing where someone might say "I am a healer, I don't do damage" is a thing of the past; and, to be honest, combat has gotten much better because of that imo.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I am surprised no one mentions it, but the smaller group sizes of most MMOs is a big contributor to the demise of the pure support class. DAOC had 8 person groups, plenty of room for most classes to be useful. (OK, maybe not stealthers)
Most modern MMOs have 5 or less, making the consolidation of more skills on fewer classes more necessary.
At one time I think there was talk of DAOC considering moving up to 10 man groups, but it never materialized.
In a smaller group, you don't have the option to specialize as much. Everyone has to pull their own weight. You can't be a one-trick pony. You have to be able to do 2 or 3 things at least.
That thing where someone might say "I am a healer, I don't do damage" is a thing of the past; and, to be honest, combat has gotten much better because of that imo.
In your opinion its better, in mine it just waters down the role because they can't be made as complex as a pure single role can. Besides in a game like DAOC most support had multiple role, mezzers were sometimes also speeders, sometimes dps, etc.
But then again no other MMORPG has even come close to DAOC in terms of role variety or complexity, so probably not a fair comparison and unfortunately it was one of my first MMOs since it sort of hard wired me into expecting similar designs in future games which never materialized really.
In fact, one of the reasons I play EVE is the fact it still has a wide variety of support roles, and virtually unlimited group size so there is almost a place for any role in every fleet and you can usually play the one you like if you have the skills for it, which I do after 5 years in the game.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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In your opinion its better, in mine it just waters down the role because they can't be made as complex as a pure single role can. Besides in a game like DAOC most support had multiple role, mezzers were sometimes also speeders, sometimes dps, etc.
But then again no other MMORPG has even come close to DAOC in terms of role variety or complexity, so probably not a fair comparison and unfortunately it was one of my first MMOs since it sort of hard wired me into expecting similar designs in future games which never materialized really.
In fact, one of the reasons I play EVE is the fact it still has a wide variety of support roles, and virtually unlimited group size so there is almost a place for any role in every fleet and you can usually play the one you like if you have the skills for it, which I do after 5 years in the game.
Er, but layering additional responsibilities onto an existing playstyle is going to make that playstyle deeper, not shallower.
People really try hard to believe the genre is in a nosedive towards shallowness, but in this particular case of classes getting additional responsibilities layered onto existing ones these classes are all deeper as a result.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I've realized in games of recent that there's a severe lack of support classes, that is classes that aren't healers but rather they specialize in buffing the party and using spells that control the field of battle or tempo of a fight. Things like Bards! What happened to this role in MMOs? It was always my favourite, playing strategist and mascot in the backlines.
There's a number of reasons.
Support classes haven't completely died, but they are indeed a lot less common (for your typical MMORPG that is). This is primarily due to solo / group dynamics in the current market. People don't want to be too dependant on others to get things done anymore. In the past you would need to group up to achieve most things. Today, most things are meant to be soloed, with only the hardest content requiring a group to beat. Furthermore groups have gotten much smaller. 5 man groups are much easier to obtain than 8 or even 10, let alone a full raid of 40+. It's the magic number that yields the highest chance of getting a group, without completely destroying the group dynamic.
All that said, there is just simply not enough room for traditional support roles within the mindsets of most gamers. The average gamer wants tank, healer, DPS. That's their group, and unless forced they don't give supports much thought. Furthermore, support roles generally require the highest level of understand of game mechanics to be effective. You need to understand when & where certain buffs are effective, when to use which debuffs, etc. etc. They usually don't have 1-size fits all rotations like the other archetypes do. It's a lot more situational and actually requires a good amount of thought.
From what's been seen with each new game, the average player tends to not want to think that much about what their doing, or rely on others to do that job in order for them to get the new shiny. It sucks, a lot, but it's sadly a reality. I'm sure we will see more support classes in the future, but not as long as we continue to play overly simplistic games.
got to play the games to find them, plenty of support classes out there
Those aren't quite support characters as I envision them or the type I'm used to persay, they're more hybrids of dps and healing at most. I don't know about Controllers or Lineage 2, but AoC and Tera don't have pure support classes. Not sure you can consider a sniper a support class, that's high dps even with field control.
Play sandbox-focused MMOs then. In those you can usually specialize into a support class if you want.
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I am surprised no one mentions it, but the smaller group sizes of most MMOs is a big contributor to the demise of the pure support class. DAOC had 8 person groups, plenty of room for most classes to be useful. (OK, maybe not stealthers)
Most modern MMOs have 5 or less, making the consolidation of more skills on fewer classes more necessary.
At one time I think there was talk of DAOC considering moving up to 10 man groups, but it never materialized.
In a smaller group, you don't have the option to specialize as much. Everyone has to pull their own weight. You can't be a one-trick pony. You have to be able to do 2 or 3 things at least.
That thing where someone might say "I am a healer, I don't do damage" is a thing of the past; and, to be honest, combat has gotten much better because of that imo.
In your opinion its better, in mine it just waters down the role because they can't be made as complex as a pure single role can. Besides in a game like DAOC most support had multiple role, mezzers were sometimes also speeders, sometimes dps, etc.
But then again no other MMORPG has even come close to DAOC in terms of role variety or complexity, so probably not a fair comparison and unfortunately it was one of my first MMOs since it sort of hard wired me into expecting similar designs in future games which never materialized really.
In fact, one of the reasons I play EVE is the fact it still has a wide variety of support roles, and virtually unlimited group size so there is almost a place for any role in every fleet and you can usually play the one you like if you have the skills for it, which I do after 5 years in the game.
You don't make much effort explaining your assertions. How does it water down a character if it can function in multiple roles exactly? How can't they be made as complex as pure single-character-single-role can?
I haven't played DAOC, but certainly in Eve, the ships (classes) are, apart from few exceptions, one trick ponies. There isn't much variation a Logistics ship can do or an Interdictor, for example. And while flying either one seems to be difficult for many, its not really all that complicated. Playing a Logistics ship is easy. Playing a damage dealer is easy. Playing tackle well is somewhat more challenging, but not really all that difficult either.
I don't see what you mean by roles being more complex as the number of players go up. If anything its the opposite! However, I contend that the complexity of roles comes primarily from other game mechanics such as: Is healing the only means of active defense in the game? Does the map design allow split-builds or is it just a big blob against another big blob of players? Is map control of any use? What is the primary objective? Are there any secondary objectives?
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I am surprised no one mentions it, but the smaller group sizes of most MMOs is a big contributor to the demise of the pure support class. DAOC had 8 person groups, plenty of room for most classes to be useful. (OK, maybe not stealthers)
Most modern MMOs have 5 or less, making the consolidation of more skills on fewer classes more necessary.
At one time I think there was talk of DAOC considering moving up to 10 man groups, but it never materialized.
Good point. Yes, most MMOs pre-Wow had 6 players in a group, after Wow most have 5 so that do affect things.
Another reason is that it is had in many games to find a group when you need 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 support, 1 CC and 2 DPS, particularly after the games been out for a while.
The common fixes have been to simplify (or dumb down if you prefer that) the trinity, only use DPS or to have players switch between the roles in combat.
It would actually be pretty interesting to merge mechanics like the one from DaoC or EQ with GW2s role swapping, but I guess it would be too hard for many players too handle.
And yes, the group size should go back to 6 again anyways. It isn't really more fun with 5 players anyways, only reason most games use it now is because Wow do.
The issue with support classes is that Developers seem to only have 1 vision of them - these completely helpless folks who are only there to be glorified buff bots to people doing stuff that's important. That vision of them, the Vanilla Paladins who only existed to throw buffs every 5 minutes to 40 people or the Walking Crack Dispensers from Everquest, is a failed model. Non-Enchanters hated being reliant upon them to do their jobs while Enchanters hated not being able to solo effectively after about level 10.
In Vanilla, raids often tried to get away with only having 1-2 paladins for 40 man content. It was extremely stressful for the paladins who basically spent most of their time cycling through their buffs. It sucked for the 3-5th paladin in the guild, and it sucked for everyone else to be reliant on a paladin to do the most damage.
I think there's room for something in between the all-or-nothing model we currently have between DPS and Healer. Just make sure it doesn't A.) Completely suck to play that support role and B.) It's not something that's required to progress.
If a Support DPS did 80% base damage of a regular DPS and provided a skill-based cooldown that, overall, increased the performance of another by 15-20%. Maybe you designate another DPS who gets a damage boost based of a percentage of damage you're doing yourself. Or you designate a healer who gets a healing or mana boost based on your current damage. Or a tank that gets an absorb bubble based on the DPS you're doing. Something like that.
It lets people who like support scratch an itch, but isn't something that becomes required... or feels lame to play. And since you also deal 80% base damage of a regular DPS, it's not hell on earth to solo. Maybe when not grouped, you have a buff that does away with your support for 90-95% base DPS for even more fun when alone.
When I think of support classes i think of Buffers and Debuffers and CCrs. Take Everquest 1 for instance. Enchanters (Kept mobs mezzed and slowed and also buffed group with haste). Shaman in EQ 1 also did a bit of the same but specialized in high end buffs and debuffs, not so much CC. WoW originally did have "support"ish classes with CC for Dungeon runs. They faded that out since WoW is a zergfest now.
If you REALLY want to play a support class check out those ones i mentioned in Everquest 1 and 2. They might be outdated but are in HIGH demand in those games. Bards as well!!!!
Rift has support classes but... you don't really feel like your supporting much. Not sure about Age of Conan. Ive tried it but didn't get too far, may give it anything go if it's worth it?
I always loved debuffers. We are too solo minded in game design right now so not much we can do to change it.
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I hate to say it but in this case MOBA's are doing a better job than MMORPG's. Support heroes are really popular in DOTA 2.
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Originally posted by dave6660 I hate to say it but in this case MOBA's are doing a better job than MMORPG's. Support heroes are really popular in DOTA 2.
It pretty sad but we need to face the true .
Some people don't like MOBA , but i want to see MOBA grow and eat currents MMORPG's profit
That's only way for MMORPG turn back to the right way.
Another awesome aspect of mmos that was destroyed by the mainstream "mmo" crowd. Who want action combat and do it all yourself classes so they can solo through way through the game.
This. This. This.
But yea....MMOs are better off today than 10 years ago. Not.
The issue with support classes is that Developers seem to only have 1 vision of them - these completely helpless folks who are only there to be glorified buff bots to people doing stuff that's important. That vision of them, the Vanilla Paladins who only existed to throw buffs every 5 minutes to 40 people or the Walking Crack Dispensers from Everquest, is a failed model. Non-Enchanters hated being reliant upon them to do their jobs while Enchanters hated not being able to solo effectively after about level 10.
Agreed, but still I enjoyed playing those classes in the group setting.
Saying that, Rift has the absolute best modern support classes imo...the Archon and Bard. They could easily still bring some pain while doing their job, and certainly could solo.
Comments
Well not a single thing you're saying here is true about the biggest MMORPG. Certainly other MMORPGs might do things poorly, but in WOW healers are critical, crafted gear is a huge and valuable step, and all the CC/buff skills were layered on top of existing DPS/heal/tank specs, and the game clearly isn't action or FPS combat.
Just spouting a bunch of hate into the air and pretending it's truth doesn't actually make it true. Not even if it's a popular opinion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I am surprised no one mentions it, but the smaller group sizes of most MMOs is a big contributor to the demise of the pure support class. DAOC had 8 person groups, plenty of room for most classes to be useful. (OK, maybe not stealthers)
Most modern MMOs have 5 or less, making the consolidation of more skills on fewer classes more necessary.
At one time I think there was talk of DAOC considering moving up to 10 man groups, but it never materialized.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Those aren't quite support characters as I envision them or the type I'm used to persay, they're more hybrids of dps and healing at most. I don't know about Controllers or Lineage 2, but AoC and Tera don't have pure support classes. Not sure you can consider a sniper a support class, that's high dps even with field control.
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When I think of support classes i think of Buffers and Debuffers and CCrs. Take Everquest 1 for instance. Enchanters (Kept mobs mezzed and slowed and also buffed group with haste). Shaman in EQ 1 also did a bit of the same but specialized in high end buffs and debuffs, not so much CC. WoW originally did have "support"ish classes with CC for Dungeon runs. They faded that out since WoW is a zergfest now.
If you REALLY want to play a support class check out those ones i mentioned in Everquest 1 and 2. They might be outdated but are in HIGH demand in those games. Bards as well!!!!
Rift has support classes but... you don't really feel like your supporting much. Not sure about Age of Conan. Ive tried it but didn't get too far, may give it anything go if it's worth it?
For what I know Support classes are in EVE and are not in EVE at the same time, which is a contradiction, but gaming world is such a Schröedingerian thing that this can happen perfectly.
In EVE we have wars. Not little wars, but what even wars that involves so many people that if that happened in RL iit would be considered an important and big war. So that, we use a lot of Support Ships of many kinds, as Supportive Ship classes are rich and variated and you need to know how to handle one of them or you are just an easy target for the enemy. Of course this Supportive Ships are not in the Frontline, but safe in our rear guard, but anyways, in EVE the rear guard come become crazy in seconds if the enemy has a plan or just is improvising a crazy plan relying on their massively firepower and stubborn fidelity to the EVE laws: "Be bold, troll, destroy, kill and make others life a ruin the whole day" which is one of the EVE best-known mottos.
This Support classes are very refined to the point you can select even the type of damage you want to repair and the way you are going to do this, and it requires skills and real skill, as many are not able to distinguish a Support Ship from a new type of frigate.
So that, if you miss them so much maybe you can join EVE and have a lot of good time and party all night long with us and your foes, who are everywhere. So that, don't think twice!
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I wasn’t talking about WoW, because as you said WoW has Support classes. They may not be in the form you want to see them. I was talking about every other game that doesn’t have support classes. When they were brainstorming features, reading forum posts to get feel for the player base, and talking to gamers at public events. That is what the player base told developers. These aren’t my words of hate, its our fellow gamers.
When devs analyze their game data, what do they all learn? The DPS player typically can’t get along with other classes. This is not an anomaly, this is a recurring trend. Those DPS who can get along with other, that is the anomaly.
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As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Maybe people don't like support classes because they are played by people who they can't stand and they associate those roles with those people. On top of that, it builds up quite a lot of resentment when they are forced to rely on them. And when the "DPS player base" finally gets a game where they don't have to put up with it anymore, the "support players" open up on the forums complaining "where have the support classes gone", "I bet its because of the DPS player base", so on and so forth...
I don't have a vested interest in this discussion, but imagination is the limit for this kind of stereotyping.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
In a smaller group, you don't have the option to specialize as much. Everyone has to pull their own weight. You can't be a one-trick pony. You have to be able to do 2 or 3 things at least.
That thing where someone might say "I am a healer, I don't do damage" is a thing of the past; and, to be honest, combat has gotten much better because of that imo.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
In your opinion its better, in mine it just waters down the role because they can't be made as complex as a pure single role can. Besides in a game like DAOC most support had multiple role, mezzers were sometimes also speeders, sometimes dps, etc.
But then again no other MMORPG has even come close to DAOC in terms of role variety or complexity, so probably not a fair comparison and unfortunately it was one of my first MMOs since it sort of hard wired me into expecting similar designs in future games which never materialized really.
In fact, one of the reasons I play EVE is the fact it still has a wide variety of support roles, and virtually unlimited group size so there is almost a place for any role in every fleet and you can usually play the one you like if you have the skills for it, which I do after 5 years in the game.
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"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Er, but layering additional responsibilities onto an existing playstyle is going to make that playstyle deeper, not shallower.
People really try hard to believe the genre is in a nosedive towards shallowness, but in this particular case of classes getting additional responsibilities layered onto existing ones these classes are all deeper as a result.
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There's a number of reasons.
Support classes haven't completely died, but they are indeed a lot less common (for your typical MMORPG that is). This is primarily due to solo / group dynamics in the current market. People don't want to be too dependant on others to get things done anymore. In the past you would need to group up to achieve most things. Today, most things are meant to be soloed, with only the hardest content requiring a group to beat. Furthermore groups have gotten much smaller. 5 man groups are much easier to obtain than 8 or even 10, let alone a full raid of 40+. It's the magic number that yields the highest chance of getting a group, without completely destroying the group dynamic.
All that said, there is just simply not enough room for traditional support roles within the mindsets of most gamers. The average gamer wants tank, healer, DPS. That's their group, and unless forced they don't give supports much thought. Furthermore, support roles generally require the highest level of understand of game mechanics to be effective. You need to understand when & where certain buffs are effective, when to use which debuffs, etc. etc. They usually don't have 1-size fits all rotations like the other archetypes do. It's a lot more situational and actually requires a good amount of thought.
From what's been seen with each new game, the average player tends to not want to think that much about what their doing, or rely on others to do that job in order for them to get the new shiny. It sucks, a lot, but it's sadly a reality. I'm sure we will see more support classes in the future, but not as long as we continue to play overly simplistic games.
Play sandbox-focused MMOs then. In those you can usually specialize into a support class if you want.
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You don't make much effort explaining your assertions. How does it water down a character if it can function in multiple roles exactly? How can't they be made as complex as pure single-character-single-role can?
I haven't played DAOC, but certainly in Eve, the ships (classes) are, apart from few exceptions, one trick ponies. There isn't much variation a Logistics ship can do or an Interdictor, for example. And while flying either one seems to be difficult for many, its not really all that complicated. Playing a Logistics ship is easy. Playing a damage dealer is easy. Playing tackle well is somewhat more challenging, but not really all that difficult either.
I don't see what you mean by roles being more complex as the number of players go up. If anything its the opposite! However, I contend that the complexity of roles comes primarily from other game mechanics such as: Is healing the only means of active defense in the game? Does the map design allow split-builds or is it just a big blob against another big blob of players? Is map control of any use? What is the primary objective? Are there any secondary objectives?
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Good point. Yes, most MMOs pre-Wow had 6 players in a group, after Wow most have 5 so that do affect things.
Another reason is that it is had in many games to find a group when you need 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 support, 1 CC and 2 DPS, particularly after the games been out for a while.
The common fixes have been to simplify (or dumb down if you prefer that) the trinity, only use DPS or to have players switch between the roles in combat.
It would actually be pretty interesting to merge mechanics like the one from DaoC or EQ with GW2s role swapping, but I guess it would be too hard for many players too handle.
And yes, the group size should go back to 6 again anyways. It isn't really more fun with 5 players anyways, only reason most games use it now is because Wow do.
The issue with support classes is that Developers seem to only have 1 vision of them - these completely helpless folks who are only there to be glorified buff bots to people doing stuff that's important. That vision of them, the Vanilla Paladins who only existed to throw buffs every 5 minutes to 40 people or the Walking Crack Dispensers from Everquest, is a failed model. Non-Enchanters hated being reliant upon them to do their jobs while Enchanters hated not being able to solo effectively after about level 10.
In Vanilla, raids often tried to get away with only having 1-2 paladins for 40 man content. It was extremely stressful for the paladins who basically spent most of their time cycling through their buffs. It sucked for the 3-5th paladin in the guild, and it sucked for everyone else to be reliant on a paladin to do the most damage.
I think there's room for something in between the all-or-nothing model we currently have between DPS and Healer. Just make sure it doesn't A.) Completely suck to play that support role and B.) It's not something that's required to progress.
If a Support DPS did 80% base damage of a regular DPS and provided a skill-based cooldown that, overall, increased the performance of another by 15-20%. Maybe you designate another DPS who gets a damage boost based of a percentage of damage you're doing yourself. Or you designate a healer who gets a healing or mana boost based on your current damage. Or a tank that gets an absorb bubble based on the DPS you're doing. Something like that.
It lets people who like support scratch an itch, but isn't something that becomes required... or feels lame to play. And since you also deal 80% base damage of a regular DPS, it's not hell on earth to solo. Maybe when not grouped, you have a buff that does away with your support for 90-95% base DPS for even more fun when alone.
I always loved debuffers. We are too solo minded in game design right now so not much we can do to change it.
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Support classes are only useful in groups...
...and today's games tend to lower the importance of grouping and drive single player content instead.
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It pretty sad but we need to face the true .
Some people don't like MOBA , but i want to see MOBA grow and eat currents MMORPG's profit
That's only way for MMORPG turn back to the right way.
This. This. This.
But yea....MMOs are better off today than 10 years ago. Not.
Agreed, but still I enjoyed playing those classes in the group setting.
Saying that, Rift has the absolute best modern support classes imo...the Archon and Bard. They could easily still bring some pain while doing their job, and certainly could solo.