434 replies to this topic

[Rhubarb Pie]

Perm Shadow Form, on 26 November 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

They took away Trinity and replaced it with zerg fest.
It's way more less strategic than in GW1.
Remember Infuse Monks? When you had to react in less than a second?

You are confusing Strategy with having fast reactions. Strategy is hiding an army beyond a hill in WvW and having a mesmer run up with portal. This tactic was used against me and I personally hated it when it happened but think that it speaks volumes as to the diversity available to teams in this game. I for one am glad there is no posibility of "permasins" or "invincimonks" in this game. Someone earlier on in the post said that in GW1 it was easy to get groups. That person must have been part of a large alliance with a core of helpful members. Even if I wanted to be the monk of the party, If I tried to play any build that they didn't want I was dropped without giving it a chance. parties would stand around calling for monks (who were all out solo farming... because they could) and even after the perfect monk was selected and he bowed to the pressure of the group to play a certain build, if the group failed, it was the monks fault.

I am a "solo everything" perma in GW1 and I see this system is far better. I love and use all my toons...

....Except my necro. Why do I hate the new necro's so much.

[n00854180t]

Combat is one of the few things that is not screwed up in the game.


However, like the gear system, it seems the people that would rather be playing WoW are intent on screwing up the game so they can complain it's not as good at doing grind and gear treadmill (or in this case, trinity) as WoW and go "LOL back to WoW".

It's just a shame that ArenaNet listens instead of actually having integrity to their vision.

Edited by n00854180t, 27 November 2012 - 06:31 AM.

[Krazzar]

Naginto, on 26 November 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

I could read your post 100 times, its so badly written that it will never make sense. You begin with "All of those that say there never was any trinity in GW2 are sadly mistaken." Which is laughable because A- it doesn't exist, and B - Its lack of existence was the major marketing pitch of the designers. Now plainly you are assigning a different meaning to the term trinity, which is fine, but in no way do you add to the discussion at hand.

I don't know what it was like 30-some years ago, but denial is pathetic these days.

There are clearly roles in GW2, you'd see that if you ever played the game in a group that talked. I don't care about marketing I care about reality and you have people in this thread that are examples of support, tank, and damage roles, we know (at least those of us that pay attention know) there is an aggro system therefore there is tanking in the vein of holding attention and swapping attention. In my guild groups and dungeon groups there is always collaboration in terms of general roles, just like there is always collaboration in my groups in PS2, BF1942-BF3, CoH, and every other team-based game. That's not a bad thing, it's natural cooperation. There will always be cooperation that is like the trinity, the difference is there isn't "the holy trinity" of clearly defined roles that make players into operators and remove all choice.

Just take some time to think that over, or just think period. You can cling to marketing all you want but refusing to think is downright unhealthy.

Edited by Krazzar, 27 November 2012 - 05:52 AM.

[Ritualist]

Segraine, on 26 November 2012 - 11:49 PM, said:

I'd like to see the GW1 protection monk return. We don't need healing since everyone has decent self healing skills and enough ally healing to get by. The Prot monk (speaking as a PvE and PvP monk) was far more dynamic a play style than what GW2 offers.  With all the damage, one shots, control, and other things flying around, a Prot monk would add a lot to the party but not be strictly necessary. Optimal perhaps? Depends on your view.

How would it differ from the guardian?

[Dasryn]

i see it this way, in real life combat, there are roles.  you have your squad leader, your heavy weapons guy, your medics etc. its the same thing.

think about the Avengers:

Captain America - the Tank

Hulk/Black Widow - Melee DPS

Iron Man/ Hawkeye - Ranged DPS

and unfortunately i couldnt really find a healer in there but you see what i mean?  like the above post, its natural cooperation,  someone is going to lead your ass whether you like it or not.

[blindude]

Rickter, on 27 November 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

i see it this way, in real life combat, there are roles.  you have your squad leader, your heavy weapons guy, your medics etc. its the same thing.

think about the Avengers:

Captain America - the Tank

Hulk/Black Widow - Melee DPS

Iron Man/ Hawkeye - Ranged DPS

and unfortunately i couldnt really find a healer in there but you see what i mean?  like the above post, its natural cooperation,  someone is going to lead your ass whether you like it or not.

Yes and gw2 has them too!?!! Havent you played as a guardian alongside a healing elementalist ?
They are just toned down and build in every class in some ways.You also cant fully specialise in one role.
I think thats more realistic.Besides i love how healing is done in gw2 when you get gtaoes and cones that you  need to aim manually since theres no targetting of allies.Besides water fields and blast finishers imo already cover some of the basics of group healing.

[Dasryn]

my tanking is reduced to throwing up healing barriers and drawing conditions, not keeping the boss off of my team mates and keeping them alive.

a lot of these bosses in GW2 require kiting.  not everyone should be expected let alone be comfortable with kiting a boss.  that was one of the traditional tanks jobs.

[Heart Collector]

Rickter, on 27 November 2012 - 03:07 PM, said:

my tanking is reduced to throwing up healing barriers and drawing conditions, not keeping the boss off of my team mates and keeping them alive.

a lot of these bosses in GW2 require kiting.  not everyone should be expected let alone be comfortable with kiting a boss.  that was one of the traditional tanks jobs.

And - for better or for worse - there is no traditional tank in GW2. So approaching this game from a tanking perspective is bound to cause you disappointment. As for me, I love tanking (it's the only holy trinity role I enjoy) but am happy without the traditional trinity - though my admittedly very limited experience and mostly the comments from experienced players tells me that the current grouping mechanics gravitate more towards the other extreme than is necessarily good.

[MisterB]

Rickter, on 27 November 2012 - 03:07 PM, said:

my tanking is reduced to throwing up healing barriers and drawing conditions, not keeping the boss off of my team mates and keeping them alive.

a lot of these bosses in GW2 require kiting.  not everyone should be expected let alone be comfortable with kiting a boss.  that was one of the traditional tanks jobs.

This is a learn to play issue. Every player is responsible for their own survival, and every profession has the capability to contribute to the team and defend themselves.

Since you like real life analogies(with comic book characters?!), compare this skill(kiting) to getting the #%*@ out of the way of trains and cars, and learning that fire is bad.

[Segraine]

Protoss, on 27 November 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:

How would it differ from the guardian?

You won't be doing melee damage. Prot monks are casters and not as selfish as the Guardian with their spells. I found the Guardian to a bit too selfish with their support (since it helped them survive being in melee range).  Damage can be handled by Gw1 like Smite spells like Smite Condition or retaliation from the protection spells. Prot monks should have mostly indirect damage with only a few direct damage spells for solo play. If you want to play damage, the Prot monk isn't the class to play.

Edited by Segraine, 28 November 2012 - 04:11 AM.

[Cruxisinhibitor]

Omedon, on 26 November 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

So... the entire experience, and your impressions of the game... SHOULD be in the hands of countless strangers that have no invested reason to "sell" the game to you, just because it's played on a PC?

I wish you all the luck in the world in finding a sustainable good time.

You're very ignorant. The point of playing an MMO is to play with other people. They are not controlled, single-player experiences by nature, nor should they be. In fact, when done right, other peoples' influence in an MMO game can turn into a positive experience, vastly more rewarding than the anti-social systems design in this game as well as the nature of single-player console games. So you miss the point entirely. The experience is in your hands, but shaped by others around you, not dependent on them in any way, ideally.

Robsy128, on 26 November 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

Who ever said the trinity was gone?

The only difference now is that you don't need to swap characters to fill in a role. You simply change weapons or a few skills. I've often had to be a healer as a ranger, guardian or ele whilst grouping with people, and then I switch to DPS or a tank whenever my team needs me to. The trinity hasn't gone - it's just evolved.

Maybe so, but the depth or fun-factor hasn't really evolved with it. I really think they should overhaul GW2 combat.

[MisfitAndy]

Rickter, on 25 November 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

im not hard wired, i truly enjoyed tanking.  and i just now on my other monitor, fought a centaur champion in the shiverpeaks and myself, my wife and two other people fighting him all agreed that that fight is doable if we maybe hada dedicated healer.

im not saying gear the game towards it.  i just want the option.  dont you guys like options?

I love options, and that's why I like this system.  I get to play whatever character I wish, however I want, and be included in groups.

I do feel that they should have balanced the classes slightly better for survivability if they wanted to completely get rid of the whole trinity system, though.  Giving the warriors and guardians more survivability tools than other classes is weird.  What they should have done is given the standard tank classes more armor/hp and the light/medium armor classes more abilities to evade and absorb attacks.

[Basharic]

A lot of stupid in this thread.

1) GW2 has Trinity. The difference is at any given moment you might be DPS, tank, or support. It's highly fluid and if people are saying they only ever DPS they are either terrible or lying

DPS consists of plunking away at the boss.

Tanking is forcing the boss to focus on you for any amount of time.

Support is anything you do to help your team. Did you Rez a teammate? Did you use a skill to do so? Did you use a skill to cover your butt or yank a mob off a teammate? Did you share boons or strip conditions? Did you stack debuffs on a mob?

Even better, all three aspects of this new trinity flow into each other. Sometimes pumping up the DPS is the best possible thing you can do to help a teammate. Sometimes you tanking or kiting a mob helps focus the DPS, or save a downed player. Sometimes even a dink heal buys time for someone's self heal to come off CD.

On my thief in the last TA run with my guild did I:

Used Shortbow to mow down the damnable weeds, used shadow refuge as an aggro drop and minor heal for myself and teammates when we were in trouble or needed rezzes, used scorpion wire to yank a particular focus target, used cripples and immobilize to control packs of mobs, doled out boons with steal, used shadow steps to kite or pop to downed players, and stealthed the team to avoid one of the nastier pulls. I also threw up group blinds often, and evasion tanked with pistol whip and multiple dodge rolls. Not to mention throwing out poison and dark fields for combos.

The TLDR is that the GW2 trinity is infinitely deeper and more interesting than the traditional Holy Trinity. It's so smoothly integrated into the professions that half the time people don't even realize they are swapping between the new trinity roles on the fly.

Now if you want to talk about how badly designed many of the boss fights are in the game I'll join in. But it isn't the lack of traditional trinity that makes boss fights dull.

[Robsy128]

Cruxisinhibitor, on 28 November 2012 - 04:53 AM, said:

Maybe so, but the depth or fun-factor hasn't really evolved with it. I really think they should overhaul GW2 combat.

The only downside I can currently see is that you can't create your own builds like you could in GW1. Finding the combat system fun is a matter of opinion. A lot of people are really happy with it.

[Gremlin]

GW2 combat is light years ahead of gw1 combat, even though we lost some things from gw1 version.

It was a load of fun gathering elite skills from all over the game world but to be honest I never used a tenth of those I found.
I miss the variety of damage types Holy Dark Fire cold etc then the advantage of incorporating them into builds.
But then it was usually getting cold damage so I could get interrupts.

I miss secondary classes even though they again made game balance all but impossible and made game expansions ever more difficult.
That's what we lost, hundreds and hundreds of skills that made the game a nightmare to balance.

We gained a cleaner more flexible system that overall is better.
They could do a little work on skill combos but Im happy for now.

[LethoOfGulet]

Rickter, on 27 November 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

i see it this way, in real life combat, there are roles.  you have your squad leader, your heavy weapons guy, your medics etc. its the same thing.

Of course there are roles but rarely DEDICATED roles

I was trained as a medic, and one thing our officers repeated time and time again, was that "I'm a medic, shooting people is not my job like with regular infantrymen" is never a good excuse for anything. I do the exact same mine-placing, ditch-digging, shelter-building and shooting as the combat engineers that I'm grouped up with. I may not do them as well, but I'm part of that same team and I will contribute, even if in a field where I'm not as adept in.

It also goes the other way around, as all infantrymen have to be able to do basic first aid

Versatility is as important, if not more so than specialization

Edited by LethoOfGulet, 28 November 2012 - 10:46 AM.

[VanderBeltLegacy]

there is still a half trinity there for capable players,
don't butt hug the heavy armor's n let them ahead,
have a crowd controller(knock backs+cripples),
2 spikers,
engineer/ele/guardian as a DPS/crowd control+healer(healing turret+Elixr gun skill 5+supply crate=easy healing on engineer with condition spam)

Since my level Mes with full toughness, then vitality, then power=traits,, add with toughness gear(max exotic) is squishy compared to a level 70 warrior running full magic find gear(no toughness on gear just traits), inside a dungeon.

so there "broke the trinity" system becomes BULL FLOP inside dungeons and any half minded glass cannon can solo normal PvE(only place they broke trinity system)...and to be fair using heroes or ST rit or Imbagon, there was less need of trinity system in gw1 dungeons.

[Dasryn]

Basharic, on 28 November 2012 - 05:33 AM, said:

1) GW2 has Trinity. The difference is at any given moment you might be DPS, tank, or support. It's highly fluid and if people are saying they only ever DPS they are either terrible or lying

and i brought up earlier in this thread: is it sensible to expect every single GW2 player to be able to be all three roles at any given time?

my example was kiting a boss, if a player has never tanked in their life, or in fact despises it, is it fair to expect that player to be able to kite a boss effectively?

i dont think so.  sure its L2P situation, but its also forcing a player to play the game in a way they dont want to play - which is something i dont agree with.

so you know what happens?  they just dont kite the boss, then players start going down, and organization falls apart and weve got some people trying to dps the boss, others running around trying to dodge because they dont know wahts killing them, then a bunch of others trying to revive other players and getting killed during the revival process because no one is kiting the boss away from downed players.

pure anarchy.

[Basharic]

Rickter, on 28 November 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

and i brought up earlier in this thread: is it sensible to expect every single GW2 player to be able to be all three roles at any given time?

Yes because it's at the core of how the game plays. You have 30 or so levels to learn this before you can venture into dungeons.

Quote

my example was kiting a boss, if a player has never tanked in their life, or in fact despises it, is it fair to expect that player to be able to kite a boss effectively?

Every single MMO player ever has tanked something at some point. They may not have realized it but they have. What MMO player with half a functioning brain cell doesn't know how to kite?

Quote

i dont think so.  sure its L2P situation, but its also forcing a player to play the game in a way they dont want to play - which is something i dont agree with.

It's ingrained in the DNA of the game. The entire combat system is built around it. You do very little in dungeons that you don't already do out in the world. The most the dungeons demand of players is that they be a little more aware of what's going on. Lastly, the very act of buying the game means you are accepting playing within a system designed by other people. There is lots of flexibility within that system, but it is a SYSTEM. No one is forced to play this game, you aren't even forced to play it well. Outside of the fact you'll die. A lot.

Quote

so you know what happens?  they just dont kite the boss, then players start going down, and organization falls apart and weve got some people trying to dps the boss, others running around trying to dodge because they dont know wahts killing them, then a bunch of others trying to revive other players and getting killed during the revival process because no one is kiting the boss away from downed players.

pure anarchy.

As it should be. Explain exactly why the game should reward players who don't understand or use the game mechanics to their fullest? Better yet, name one game that rewards people who have failed to master the game systems better than the people who have.

[Dasryn]

Basharic, on 28 November 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

What MMO player with half a functioning brain cell doesn't know how to kite?

hey man, i was seriously considering everything you replied with except for this.  im sorry dude, but i guess you play MMOs on some higher plane of existence or something because i can tell you right now, my wife has no idea about kiting.  she doesnt want to tank, she could care less, she just wants to log in, play dress up, kill shit, and have a good time with me, her husband.

GW2 is a rather carebear game.  the content is easy enough, i dont think its unreasonable for people like her and myself even to expect to play the game at this type of pacing.

now i have the experience, ive raided as a tank in lotro, wow and swtor and tanked dungeons in Rift and Aion.  i can handle myself in these situations, but this type of mechanic is a "if you dont mind it, great, but if you dont want to play like that, i can understand" sort of deal.

i stand by my opinion.  i do not think it is fair or reasonable to expect every single GW2 player to be able to play at that level.

[Tregarde]

There are times I miss being able to have a dedicated healer... a little. But overall I'm finding combat in GW2 to be a lot more fun than I've had in other games. I like being able to take any group of friends and run off to do something. Yeah, there's a certain desire to try and form balanced groups, but it's not necessary. I've been with plenty of groups that were not "optimal", and yet we did pretty well once we got our roles down.

[Basharic]

Rickter, on 28 November 2012 - 10:43 PM, said:

hey man, i was seriously considering everything you replied with except for this.  im sorry dude, but i guess you play MMOs on some higher plane of existence or something because i can tell you right now, my wife has no idea about kiting.  she doesnt want to tank, she could care less, she just wants to log in, play dress up, kill shit, and have a good time with me, her husband.

GW2 is a rather carebear game.  the content is easy enough, i dont think its unreasonable for people like her and myself even to expect to play the game at this type of pacing.

now i have the experience, ive raided as a tank in lotro, wow and swtor and tanked dungeons in Rift and Aion.  i can handle myself in these situations, but this type of mechanic is a "if you dont mind it, great, but if you dont want to play like that, i can understand" sort of deal.

i stand by my opinion.  i do not think it is fair or reasonable to expect every single GW2 player to be able to play at that level.

The missus may not grasp the concept when you say "kite that mob" but I'll bet you she can manage  "run away from stuff that can hurt you while continuing to shoot at it." I'll even bet if you guys are past level 10 she's done it without realizing it. Sure there are layers and nuances, but the game really does a decent job of teaching you can't stand still. Not to mention if you aren't kiting you pretty much ARE tanking, at least until you get clobbered.

The beauty of the new trinity is there will never be a part of the game your missus will ever be locked out of or forced to play because of the profession she chose.  The other beauty of this game is that there is a good place for her to learn at her own pace, while still having some challenge and reward for experienced players. That might mean she does get locked out by a skill cap, it might not. But a challenge to play better is not a bad thing. If she's like my wife it becomes,"I'm GOING to beat this, and don't you DARE help me until I ask for it."

I got my missus hooked on MMOs with WoW, I had to teach her her how to bloody walk because her video gaming mostly consisted of Guitar Hero. By the time we quit a few years back, she was dancing around and gutting people with her rogue like a champ. "Noob" is actually still one of my terms of endearment for her.

[beanzzs]

Getting rid of the traditional holy trinity is limiting the variety of pvp game options. Right now the pvp game is balanced around king of the hill or conquest. This is the one of the few game styles that works with this new soft trinity.  We will never see capture the flag in gw2 because it could not be balance with the soft trinity. That is a true shame. In the end getting rid of the traditional trinity solved one problem. No more spending hours looking for tanks and healers. But this has left the game with boring class mechanics and boring pvp games.

[Stellarthief]

beanzzs, on 29 November 2012 - 02:20 AM, said:

We will never see capture the flag in gw2 because it could not be balance with the soft trinity.

And why exactly not? You have CTF in FPS games (with or without the holy trinity - think of TFC vs. Halo) and even in RTS games.  You can always manage a CTF.

[Dasryn]

Stellarthief, on 29 November 2012 - 11:59 AM, said:

And why exactly not? You have CTF in FPS games (with or without the holy trinity - think of TFC vs. Halo) and even in RTS games.  You can always manage a CTF.

i think he was saying that since there is no "tank" or "healer" you cant really strategize with a dedicated ball carrier and someone to keep that ball carrier alive?

idk, i never thought of the pvp aspect of it.

[Stellarthief]

Rickter, on 29 November 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

i think he was saying that since there is no "tank" or "healer" you cant really strategize with a dedicated ball carrier and someone to keep that ball carrier alive?

idk, i never thought of the pvp aspect of it.

Of course you can.  You just have to do it differently.

In GW2 there are basically 3 classes of armor and hp.  Guardian for example despite being a soldier has pitiful HP and a ranger/necro despite having medium/light armor respectively have much higher HP. But for all that, they try to balance out the classes movement speeds, vulnerabilities and utilities so that a thief for example doesn't additional have automatically huge HP pool, armor pool and can keep their mobility and DPS high.  You have to make trade-offs.

Additionally, they can easily do things that other games have done "no invulnerability while holding flag", "no teleporting while holding flag", etc to counter act some of the classes with far above average mobility (ride the lightning + immunity on flag carrier would be a bit imba, followed by swiftness and increased run speed at all times).

There are many different strategies and good CTF teams have never relied on, "give it to the tank" alone.  When I had a top CTF team in WoW (TBC) we had hunters running the flag because of the synergy in beastmaster and the unstoppable speed of it with a cat/bear druid as backup when things got tight.  We didn't automatically give it to the tank class with no mobility and little CC..  Some people did that, we crushed them, even in their top end raid tank gear.

The trinity is not needed at all to make CTF viable. That's poor strategic thinking.

[Dasryn]

Stellarthief, on 29 November 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

Of course you can.  You just have to do it differently.

In GW2 there are basically 3 classes of armor and hp.  Guardian for example despite being a soldier has pitiful HP and a ranger/necro despite having medium/light armor respectively have much higher HP. But for all that, they try to balance out the classes movement speeds, vulnerabilities and utilities so that a thief for example doesn't additional have automatically huge HP pool, armor pool and can keep their mobility and DPS high.  You have to make trade-offs.

Additionally, they can easily do things that other games have done "no invulnerability while holding flag", "no teleporting while holding flag", etc to counter act some of the classes with far above average mobility (ride the lightning + immunity on flag carrier would be a bit imba, followed by swiftness and increased run speed at all times).

There are many different strategies and good CTF teams have never relied on, "give it to the tank" alone.  When I had a top CTF team in WoW (TBC) we had hunters running the flag because of the synergy in beastmaster and the unstoppable speed of it with a cat/bear druid as backup when things got tight.  We didn't automatically give it to the tank class with no mobility and little CC..  Some people did that, we crushed them, even in their top end raid tank gear.

The trinity is not needed at all to make CTF viable. That's poor strategic thinking.

well i wasnt really even sure what he meant, thats why i had a question mark after my pseudo explanation.  i mean, its w/e really.

[dhatcher1]

Rickter, on 29 November 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

i think he was saying that since there is no "tank" or "healer" you cant really strategize with a dedicated ball carrier and someone to keep that ball carrier alive?

Which class is the tank in Football, Basketball, Soccer, Paintball etc?  Trinity has nothing to do with PvP sport.  Its a non-sequitur.

Edited by dhatcher1, 29 November 2012 - 09:29 PM.

[Dasryn]

ok guys, seriously stop quoting what i wrote and taking it as my opinion.  there is a question mark at the end of my statement, why? because i was assuming/trying to explain what the original poster wrote in my interpretation which i wasnt even sure if it was right or not.

i mean, seriously.  quote the guy that originally wrote what i was attempting to explain.

[Dasryn]

i ran my first dungeon today.  ascalon catacombs, story mode.

there are indeed roles.  we had a dedicated healer, and we needed one.  our group consisted of 3 warrior and two guardians (go figure right?)  i was a guardian and i was "tanking" and the other guardian was dedicated healer.

i was focused on drawing conditions, keeping protection up at all times, and applying aegis whenever i could while still trying to do damage.

the trick to the dungeon we found was simply focusing targets lol.  we wiped as a group twice, we were all new to the dungeon and dungeons in GW2 in general.

but yeah the healer was doing everything she could to heal the group and was kinda the dedicated reviver person too lol. and i have two ways of applying aegis, and two ways of applying protection so i was constantly cycling through that. . .

idk, i still felt like the roles were there, but it just wasnt as pronounced.  its kinda weird, it felt like what you would see in an actual battle situation where the healer was the healer and you knew that, but they were still offensively capable.

and hoenstly i couldnt tell if it was inexperience or lack of roles that was causing the chaos.