Can we please NOT force "Trinity Gaming" in CoX? (Dr Khan)

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, ScarySai said:

 

Alright, I'm just going to address something really quick.

 

Being a min/maxer, good at the game, or doing high end content isn't elitism. Stop using the term like that, it's wrong.

Look, I'm old, you won't be changing me as I am a tough nut to crack...just let me be and say things incorrectly and we will get along just fine,.

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by Solarverse

[ForeverLaxx]

9 hours ago, Solarverse said:

That sure didn't stop players from playing as though it was a Trinity style game though, lol.

No one was disputing this. In fact, people were reminding you that players still do it today, 17 years after the game first released. The issue was your claim that it was designed to be a "trinity game" when it never was.

 

9 hours ago, Apparition said:

Not much later.  Bodyguard mode was introduced in Issue 7, about seven months after City of Villains launch.  And yeah, Masterminds were originally designed as the CoV tank.  That's why Lord Recluse has pets and yet is considered a tank.  But that was pretty quickly walked back, before CoV launch IIRC.

I was in the CoV beta and I don't recall them "walking back" the idea that MMs were meant to be the one doing the tanking. The belief was, since Brutes were stuck with Scrapper defense/resist values despite having the Tank cap potential and MMs had an army of "disposable" HP sacks, that it was the MM's job to send in their pets to absorb the alpha attack, which is generally the most dangerous moment for anyone meant to take a hit. My main in the beta was a Stalker, but my main after the beta was a MM and I definitely built mine to be able to tank. The bodyguard introduction just reinforced the notion and that the playstyle shifted from "send in your long recharge, squishy pets to absorb hits" into "pull aggro yourself and split the damage".

 

My only problem with being a Tankermind on a team is that I'm forced into the Presence Pool to make it functional, but then, that power pool needs a reason to exist and honestly it's pretty fitting thematically for a Mastermind anyway. Oh, and I hate how AoEs utterly wreck a MM in BG mode.

 

3 hours ago, macskull said:

I'm amazed there are people who think this as CoH has always been casual-friendly in the "pick any build with any powers and any slotting and you can at least be somewhat effective most of the time" sense, or maybe the "you can still enjoy the game even if you only jump on for an  hour or two once or twice a week" sense. Where the casual-friendliness drops off really fast is when you start digging beneath the surface to figure out how the game actually works. Try explaining to a new player how hit chance is calculated, or how resistible resistance debuffs are resisted by damage resistance, and then watch as their eyes slowly glaze over.

Despite how intricate the game can be under the hood, what helps the "casual-friendly" nature of the game shine through is that none of what you said actually matters to a casual player. To clear 99% of the game's content, you don't need to know how anything works. You don't need to min/max. You don't need to eek out that last 5%. Slot accuracy until you think you're hitting enough, slot damage until you think you're hitting hard enough, slot recharge so you have things up more often, slot defense/resist in the powers that are meant for it, etc. They don't care if they're "overcapped" on accuracy for the content they're running or might have "wasted" a few slots on Defense in Stealth when they're still making it through missions.

 

The fact that you can dig into the meat and potatoes and completely run circles around most content is unrelated.

 

I do find a bit of humor in the notion that the game stops being "casual friendly" when the "casual player" does something entirely un-casual and starts digging to begin their quest towards min/maxing, or at least, figuring out how best to leverage their standard SO build. Casual and Hardcore is a mindset, not some kind of arbitrary time commitment. Once you start caring about maximizing performance towards a specific goal, and take steps to achieve that, you're not really a "casual player" anymore.

[macskull]

15 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

I do find a bit of humor in the notion that the game stops being "casual friendly" when the "casual player" does something entirely un-casual and starts digging to begin their quest towards min/maxing, or at least, figuring out how best to leverage their standard SO build. Casual and Hardcore is a mindset, not some kind of arbitrary time commitment. Once you start caring about maximizing performance towards a specific goal, and take steps to achieve that, you're not really a "casual player" anymore.

Nah, it was more a commentary on how casual-unfriendly this game is under the hood when compared to what you see at the surface level. It's pretty easy to pick up and just play but it gets really complicated really fast.

[ForeverLaxx]

3 minutes ago, macskull said:

Nah, it was more a commentary on how casual-unfriendly this game is under the hood when compared to what you see at the surface level. It's pretty easy to pick up and just play but it gets really complicated really fast.

Games can be both casual-friendly and reward those who know how to push the limits. It's not a one or the other kind of deal.

[golstat2003]

9 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Games can be both casual-friendly and reward those who know how to push the limits. It's not a one or the other kind of deal.

 

True. Which is why I always advocate for it to remain casual friendly at base level, yet offer more options to reward those who want more complex levels.

[Wavicle]

11 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

 

Not much later.  Bodyguard mode was introduced in Issue 7, about seven months after City of Villains launch.  And yeah, Masterminds were originally designed as the CoV tank.  That's why Lord Recluse has pets and yet is considered a tank.  But that was pretty quickly walked back, before CoV launch IIRC.

Indeed. They were never actually tanks, and they don't have the tools (Mez Protection and AoE Taunt effects) to really do the job.

[Wavicle]

@Solarverse I think you mean Elites, not Elitists.

[Solarverse]

46 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

@Solarverse I think you mean Elites, not Elitists.

Yeah. That sounds about right. But I'm old, that is my excuse and I am sticking to it, lol.

[Doomguide2005]

On 6/17/2021 at 1:55 PM, Solarverse said:

Sounds like a bunch of Elitists. So is that what we are compared to...the rest of us I mean? Elitists always do things that nobody else can do. I and players on my level on the other hand are just not that.

     Disclaimer while I joined RO relatively early i wasn't there at the very beginning.  But I've always understood it coalesced in part out of those early Defender players reacting to the idea of being seen as "healers" as in that portion of the Trinity and constantly being told to conform to that role on PuG teams (and getting kicked when not conforming).  So often getting told just to heal, ignorant of the capabilities of the power set overall "just "heal" even when the set had no heal, had other forms of mitigation or their healing had requirements like needing a foe around etc., etc..

 

 

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     Disclaimer while I joined RO relatively early i wasn't there at the very beginning.  But I've always understood it coalesced in part out of those early Defender players reacting to the idea of being seen as "healers" as in that portion of the Trinity and constantly being told to conform to that role on PuG teams (and getting kicked when not conforming).  So often getting told just to heal, ignorant of the capabilities of the power set overall "just "heal" even when the set had no heal, had other forms of mitigation or their healing had requirements like needing a foe around etc., etc..

 

 

 

That sounds VERY VERY VERY familiar from what I read from them in various posts in the forums at the time.

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     Disclaimer while I joined RO relatively early i wasn't there at the very beginning.  But I've always understood it coalesced in part out of those early Defender players reacting to the idea of being seen as "healers" as in that portion of the Trinity and constantly being told to conform to that role on PuG teams (and getting kicked when not conforming).  So often getting told just to heal, ignorant of the capabilities of the power set overall "just "heal" even when the set had no heal, had other forms of mitigation or their healing had requirements like needing a foe around etc., etc..

 

 

 

 

Heh.  Back in Issue 3 or 4, I joined a Hollows team on a Radiation Emission/Dark Blast Defender, and was eventually kicked from the team because I wasn't a "healer."  Even now, whenever I play a Dark Miasma or Time Manipulation character and someone thanks me for my "nice heals," I cringe inside.

[Solarverse]

@ScarySai Why the thumbs down...take a joke, man. Life is not that serious.

[Solarverse]

21 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

@ScarySai Why the thumbs down...take a joke, man. Life is not that serious.

Yay! I got a thumbs up! Haha, thanks, @TheZag  😄

[TheZag]

I personally would like to see some more content added that isnt possible to just faceroll through.  Sappers used to be scary,  now they are kinda just there.  When something challenging gets added,  the players call for a nerf.  When players solo +4x8 and you try and do a team with 8 players,  its basically +4×1.  I like to team up with my friends but once theres more then 4 people,  the difficulty doesnt mean anything anymore.

[TheZag]

7 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Yay! I got a thumbs up! Haha, thanks, @TheZag  😄

 

Who has 2 thumbs and can take a joke.....👍👍  this guy.

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, TheZag said:

I personally would like to see some more content added that isnt possible to just faceroll through.  Sappers used to be scary,  now they are kinda just there.  When something challenging gets added,  the players call for a nerf.  When players solo +4x8 and you try and do a team with 8 players,  its basically +4×1.  I like to team up with my friends but once theres more then 4 people,  the difficulty doesnt mean anything anymore.

It would be nice if there was an option to scale the NPC's hit points per member of your team, that would at very least give them some staying power if done correctly. My biggest issue is that mobs die far too quickly so they aren't much of a competition for teams these days. They simply don't have the hit points to compete. If there were an option that grants them a 100% health increase per member of your team, it would take more than a single rotation to defeat them. Adjust XP accordingly and it would be a decent system in the right direction that would also be optional. But that is an idea best for its own thread.

[golstat2003]

6 hours ago, Solarverse said:

It would be nice if there was an option to scale the NPC's hit points per member of your team, that would at very least give them some staying power if done correctly. My biggest issue is that mobs die far too quickly so they aren't much of a competition for teams these days. They simply don't have the hit points to compete. If there were an option that grants them a 100% health increase per member of your team, it would take more than a single rotation to defeat them. Adjust XP accordingly and it would be a decent system in the right direction that would also be optional. But that is an idea best for its own thread.

 

I'm all for anything that is optional. 🙂 

[Norl]

Trinity play is a "local minima" in gameplay design that it seems hard for game designers to break out of.

 

But it's easy.  Get rid of taunt.

 

You got no taunt, you got no tank.

You got no tank, you got no tank crypto-controller.

You must rely on other controllers and on every DPS keeping their cool.

 

In theory, even with tanks, the design is supposed to be such that high DPS can overwhelm the tank's override on control, making the dps take it easy as part of the gameplay design.  But supertanks that let DPS go nuts with no fear breaks even that.

 

Anyway, taunt is the root of all evil.  "But I like playing tanks!"  I know.  May I show you 200 other games out there that cater to it?

 

This game, to say nothing of an experimental new MMORPG, should be playable at the highest levels without needing tank.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Norl

[Doomguide2005]

3 hours ago, Norl said:

Trinity play is a "local minima" in gameplay design that it seems hard for game designers to break out of.

 

But it's easy.  Get rid of taunt.

 

You got no taunt, you got no tank.

You got no tank, you got no tank crypto-controller.

You must rely on other controllers and on every DPS keeping their cool.

 

In theory, even with tanks, the design is supposed to be such that high DPS can overwhelm the tank's override on control, making the dps take it easy as part of the gameplay design.  But supertanks that let DPS go nuts with no fear breaks even that.

 

Anyway, taunt is the root of all evil.  "But I like playing tanks!"  I know.  May I show you 200 other games out there that cater to it?

 

This game, to say nothing of an experimental new MMORPG, should be playable at the highest levels without needing tank.

      It's an interesting thought but ... 

Taunt is merely part of the many variables making up threat (and therefore aggro).  More than just Tankers inflict the status effect called Taunt as well.   Simply removing Taunt tweaks this (and removes several powers, including a pool power open to all).  Tanks and Brutes are still going to have a strong (strongest?) threat value typically.  Brutes might even pull ahead.

 

     But does any of this create any less Trinity than already exist.  I believe a Trinity doesn't exist unless you want it to exist, it's a possible playstyle not a required one.  You can play at the highest level with no Tanker in sight and likely do so with no use of Taunt (the status effect) if desired as well.

[macskull]

22 hours ago, Solarverse said:

It would be nice if there was an option to scale the NPC's hit points per member of your team, that would at very least give them some staying power if done correctly. My biggest issue is that mobs die far too quickly so they aren't much of a competition for teams these days. They simply don't have the hit points to compete. If there were an option that grants them a 100% health increase per member of your team, it would take more than a single rotation to defeat them. Adjust XP accordingly and it would be a decent system in the right direction that would also be optional. But that is an idea best for its own thread.

Even if you increased NPC hit points across the board by a factor of, I dunno, ten, it still wouldn't make most mobs a competition. The mobs which are already difficult would still be difficult and the easy ones would not be any harder, it would just take longer to defeat them. It might make AV fights a bit more difficult because regen scales with HP, but really all it's doing is slowing down the game for no real gain.

[srmalloy]

4 hours ago, Norl said:

Trinity play is a "local minima" in gameplay design that it seems hard for game designers to break out of.

The class trinity goes back to D&D, and was incorporated into Everquest, then WoW; it's a simple "this is your role in the team" division that was easy for people to grasp when they started playing a game. It became the "holy trinity" with WoW's success -- the designers of other MMOs wanted to make it as easy as possible to switch from WoW to their MMO, so they copied WoW's class system, and over time it got enshrined as the way MMOs 'had' to work. It has been tested over time, its problems are well-known, and there is a large number of developers looking at problems. It also makes encounter design easier, since you know what the classes bring to the fight. And it enhances replayability, since the same content plays differently for each role.

 

On the downside, it restricts how players interact with the game, and too slavish an adherence can choke player choice, and some roles may not work well shifting between solo and group play. And even when there are options to diversify the role of a character or class, the expectation of "You're an X, so you have to be role Y" in the community may funnel players away from taking advantage of the character design options the game provides.

 

Ultimately, it comes down to the question of whether a game design can be made attractive enough that its divergence from the 'holy trinity' isn't perceived as a bar to joining the game. And a lot of game development companies are loathe to do anything truly innovative out of fear of being perceived as too different, so we keep getting games that are trinity-based with some customization slapped onto the side.

[Auracle]

 

On 6/18/2021 at 2:46 PM, ForeverLaxx said:

No one was disputing this. In fact, people were reminding you that players still do it today, 17 years after the game first released. The issue was your claim that it was designed to be a "trinity game" when it never was.

 

It was a trinity game. It had tanks, healers and DPS. Plus controllers. Well ok, trinity-point-five.

 

Content could be completed with any group composition but as a general (i.e. not absolute) rule, 1 or 2 tanks, at least one healer and a bunch of DPS was the most effective.

 

Though archetypes and their power sets are more varied than other typical RPGs. An emp defender / controller is a very different beast to a kinetics one. Ditto the control primaries are varied. A team full of fire / kin controllers would instantly melt everything. Not so much a team full of mind / emps.

 

Personally I think they struck a good balance. It was an extremely rare occurrence to end up in a full team with a significantly sub-optimal powerset composition.

 

6 hours ago, Norl said:

Trinity play is a "local minima" in gameplay design that it seems hard for game designers to break out of.

 

Have you been paying attention?

 

Guild Wars 2 at launch made much of their having done away with trinity. And they did. At launch, healers weren't really a thing in their game. They favoured damage avoidance and self-heals on big cooldowns.

 

End-game PvE was a melee zerg-fest. Yawn. Accordingly a lot of people played and enjoyed the game until max level, then got bored and left. Later they realised their mistake and tried to falsely claim that they never said they did away with trinity, or did, and reintroduced it.

 

Unfortunately - especially for us tanks and healers - many other developers seeing GW2's great financial success, mistakenly attributed it to this design element and also effectively did away with trinity.

 

eg. Elder Scrolls Online claims to have tanks, healers and DPS, but in terms of actual group gameplay, healers primarily DPS and mindlessly re-apply crazily short duration buffs and heal over times. Oh and never resurrect. DPS do that. Healers don't just in case someone actually needs a heal.

 

Healers were always my fave in online games and they've largely vanished in the past decade.

[golstat2003]

6 hours ago, Norl said:

Trinity play is a "local minima" in gameplay design that it seems hard for game designers to break out of.

 

But it's easy.  Get rid of taunt.

 

You got no taunt, you got no tank.

You got no tank, you got no tank crypto-controller.

You must rely on other controllers and on every DPS keeping their cool.

 

In theory, even with tanks, the design is supposed to be such that high DPS can overwhelm the tank's override on control, making the dps take it easy as part of the gameplay design.  But supertanks that let DPS go nuts with no fear breaks even that.

 

Anyway, taunt is the root of all evil.  "But I like playing tanks!"  I know.  May I show you 200 other games out there that cater to it?

 

This game, to say nothing of an experimental new MMORPG, should be playable at the highest levels without needing tank.

 

Errr some of the major mmos still have taunt auras and taunt. FFXIV Online for example. And they still have healers. So that kind of play still exists for those that want it (though more limited today than in the heyday of mmos).

Edited June 19, 2021 by golstat2003

[Luminara]

57 minutes ago, Auracle said:

It was a trinity game. It had tanks, healers and DPS. Plus controllers. Well ok, trinity-point-five.

 

Defenders aren't healers.  They never were.

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Auracle said:

Content could be completed with any group composition but as a general (i.e. not absolute) rule, 1 or 2 tanks, at least one healer and a bunch of DPS was the most effective.

I assume we are talking about CoH here, in which case this has never been true even as a general rule. The DPS part, sure, but teams heavier on the buff/debuff side of things vs the tank/heal side of things have almost always had an easier go of most of this game's content.