Let's Talk About the Holy Trinity

[Frozen Burn]

The beauty of this game is that it broke the mold of the Holy Trinity.  Every other game was, and most still are, based on the Holy Trinity.  In the early days of COH, the Holy Trinity was king and while there were these other awesome ATs and powersets, they weren't as effective as the Trinity and people who wanted to play them, struggled - not just in being effective, but in getting teams unless they were just tacked onto a Trinity team.  The changes made over time to balance the game, ATs, and powers was needed, and was useful, and is as it should have been, imo.  Again, COH broke the mold that other games just can't seem to get away from - and that's why I love COH so much. 

[TheZag]

The giant shivan was repelled by lvl 2 trainee heroes.  But he retreated to his lair and drank 2 red bulls and a mountain dew.  Now he returns in a caffeine filled rage as a lvl 54+5 incarnate mega boss with an entire destroyed galaxy city as a stronghold.

 

[Andreah]

I would rather like to see enemies acting smarter tactically rather than getting stat buffs.

 

it's very doable to make smarter AIs, and it's been done before. The problem is they very quickly become much, much better at it than players.  The computer's ability to observe and understand the situation, process and evaluate options, and execute them in a coordinated manner far exceeds a team of players' (ref: Boyd cycle).  The challenge for developers is to simulate how the enemy as a group would behave as if it were players with similarly limited abilities, and that's hard to get right. So we end up with harder enemies you have to Trinity to death, or boss-mechanic gimmick systems, that make you pat your head, rub your belly, and sing a tune at the same time to win.

[Enchantica]

Well, I Played from issue one till the last day.  Now I am back.  Loving every moment. I think perhaps some of your criticism of the way it was and now the way it is has some validity.  I think you forget the hazard zones were dangerous when you were new. You're a veteran player. Take into account your experience in just building a better toon alone would make things easier.  "The Past is the only dead thing that smells sweet" I will say without reservation this is and will always be the greatest game I have ever played.  The spirit of this game and the players who make it home are the best!  All games suffer from crybaby's who want this changed and that changed. ( not referring to you in any way) Let's just hope they all stick with World of Snore Craft. The spirit of this game touches on something truly unique. I feel it every time I log on.  🤗

[Seldom]

I remember back in issue 0, playing my first character: a rad/rad defender. After doing missions solo in atlas, (Though to be honest mostly street hunting) I decided to go to Perez as I'd heard that's the best way to get levels, and I couldn't wait to get hover. I went there, and the team leader told me radiation emission was bad (weak heal) but while he and the other tougher folks killed slimes, my job was to keep pumping heals. I was told to not use the toggles as they took away endurance needed for healing, and didn't kill anything.

 

In retrospect I can see why they thought this way, especially if they came from other more traditional MMO's of the time. At the time I shared the account and had limited time, so didn't have time to get to know the game that well. Fast forward to the time CoV came out I had my own account and more time to learn the game, and for whatever reason I glommed onto v1.0 dominators. (The ones with lowest damage in the game sans domination) Starting issue 0 on a poorly understood version of one of the most versatile, powerful (at its job) defenders to knowing the game but playing one of the weakest archetypes in the game and still finding success and fun, I understood why the game was so good.

 

Most games have a simpler number of dials they play with for approach. The 'trinity' aspects (damage, resilience, healing with a bit of boosts) certainly align to these. The biggest difference in my mind are that buffs, debuffs & controls have such a strong place at the table. This means that there's a huge spectrum of approaches, and these aren't limited by AT or role. Each powerset might dabble into many of the resilience/damage/healing/buffs/debuffs/control directions.

 

Want control/resilience? Dark armor. Damage/debuffs? Rad/sonic blasts. Damage/control? Fire/gravity control. Buffs/damage? Kinetics. Every primary/secondary on every AT will give you new chemistry in this broad alchemy of approaches to combat. I  know debuffs/control/buffs aren't unique here, but their power levels are pretty much on the same level as damage/resilience/healing, (and sometimes higher) making the 'optimal' approach really dependant on the team makeup. Can you focus on toughness/healing/damage? Sure. It might actually be hard to form a team that doesn't go beyond these in focus, but it'll still work. But so will a team with all control, all debuffs, all buffs, or best yet a broad representation of all. Now that you have all the different invention sets, it lets builds do things they couldn't do before, shore up their weaknesses, or do stuff you're good at at such a higher level it lends completely new tactics. This is one of the best reason for the longevity of the game: each set combo, AT, and build tends to have its own particular approach, making playing from character to character or team to team its own unique spin on things.

 

Honestly, I prefer seeing teams make stuff that "shouldn't work" do so due to this complexity: I was on one the other day with only control types, masterminds, and one stalker. The buffs, controls, debuffs were so crazy the stalker was well nigh invincible, (We called them our sneaky tank) while the pets swarmed the weakened, helpless mobs. It was a hoot.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Barneysaurus

[roleki]

We should all bite each other's asses until only the largest, most-undigestible ass remains.

[Solarverse]

28 minutes ago, roleki said:

We should all bite each other's asses until only the largest, most-undigestible ass remains.

 

Okay, I can die happy now. I just read the most insane metaphor I have ever heard, lol.

[nihilii]

The only instance I can remember of the forum lobbying to reduce the game's difficulty was with the LRSF. People complained it was too hard compared to Hamidon, and the lvl 54 AVs were made lvl 53 eventually. Then Statesman died and Psyche went away (replaced with Penelope), so the hero count was lowered from 8 to 7.

Watching this from the European servers, the French one especially in my case, it was rather ironic. For us taking on Hamidon was a rare event compared to the Americans doing it daily. We simply didn't have enough players nor enough coordination to do so. On the other hand, it was much easier to find 7 good teammates and take on the Freedom Phalanx.

 

This even led to situations where envious heroes in PVP zones would argue villains had an inherently unfair advantage, being HOed to the gills while *they* were lucky to have a couple if any. If you thought the complaining about Stalker Hide was bad, picture this on top. The hero paranoia got so bad they would point fingers at low level characters who couldn't even slot HOs. Fun times!

Anyway, like Enchantica said much of the perceived lowering of the game difficulty is tied to player knowledge increasing moreso than actual changes. Remember the original game was capped at +2/x8, +2/x1 solo unless you brought doorsitters specifically to increase your difficulty, and the toughest foe you faced was a lone archvillain.

 

There was always dumb overpowered stuff you could do. City of Blasters. City of Dumpsters. City of Statues. Scrapperlock and perma-MoG/Elude/Unstoppable. We had all of these. My I4 fire/em blaster ran with Force of Nature 6-slotted for recharge, gobbled lucks, and went to town on her own without ever waiting for a Tanker. Even defenders were an absolute force to reckon with; while newbies spammed Healing Aura, savvier players embraced debuffs to turn the relatively weak opposition of the time into fluffy kitties.

The knowledge gap was real. The asymmetry was immense. If you were playing a Radiation defender, it was common that you could take the alphas opening up with RI, and generally do a better job at it than most PuG tankers. *This* is at the heart of the different dynamics you see today. It's not about IOs or incarnates or any of the tools introduced. It's about game mechanic knowledge being widespread. We can't wipe out people's brains, so the only path to structured play is to crank up the challenge high enough.

[macskull]

3 hours ago, nihilii said:

This even led to situations where envious heroes in PVP zones would argue villains had an inherently unfair advantage, being HOed to the gills while *they* were lucky to have a couple if any. If you thought the complaining about Stalker Hide was bad, picture this on top. The hero paranoia got so bad they would point fingers at low level characters who couldn't even slot HOs. Fun times!

Not exactly on-topic but to be entirely fair heroes did have some pretty significant advantages in PvP for a long time. Between IOs, the I13 changes, and various other changes since then, that's basically gone away, but it wasn't entirely a fair fight for a long time.

[PoptartsNinja]

City of Heroes predates the Tank/Healer/DPS "Holy Trinity." CoH was basically a generation 1.5 MMO, which means it was hot on the heels of Everquest and Ultima Online; and released six months prior to World of Warcraft (which established the Tank/Healer/DPS trinity).

 

Prior to WoW, the "Holy Trinity" was Tank/Healer/Mezzer. Issue 0 CoH conforms to this to an extent (CoV does not), which is why Blasters have Beanbag (or an equivalent) in most of their primaries and nearly every secondary starts with an immob or a knockback. The biggest exception the OG devs made to the Everquest Trinity was turning the (frankly boring) MMO 1.0 healer into a buffer/debuffer. Which were things "healers" often did but were never their primary calling. That was CoH's biggest mold break, and I still remember having a blast shortly after launch running with organized teams of 8 defenders of various types getting a feel for how powerful the buffs/debuffs really were.

 

CoH just grew in ways the OG devs never anticipated; and had grown out of the Tank/Healer/Mezzer "Holy Trinity" before Issue 1 even came out. Heck, the original design intent for armor sets was that tankers/scrappers would run maybe one or two of their toggles at a time and switch between them depending on what they were fighting. It's why they have a recharge time, because they expected we'd be turning them on and off in combat.

 

Fortunately, the game's core mechanics (things like character movement, responsiveness to player controls, character creation, and the core gameplay loop) were really fun and ones the devs dialed in on that they usually delivered more of the things we enjoyed. The additions they made over time (like sidekicking/exemplaring in all of its forms) to make the game more accessable were a huge boon as well. And the devs never really tried to re-establish any form of "Holy Trinity," which was to our benefit in the long run. The fact that we can engage with nearly all the content with any AT combination and make it work 99.9% of the time is a good thing. We were doing that back in Issue 0 and we're still doing it today. If, say, Stalkers weren't considered to be able to contribute materially to, say, Rikti Raids? This community would figure out a way to make a 100% Stalker Rikti Raid work. That's just what we do, and it's a blast every time.


Anyway, TLDR: CoH was designed before the modern MMO Tank/Healer/DPS "Holy Trinity" was a thing. It never tried to conform to something that didn't exist until 6 months after its release.

Edited September 26, 2023 by PoptartsNinja

[Solarverse]

43 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

City of Heroes predates the Tank/Healer/DPS "Holy Trinity." CoH was basically a generation 1.5 MMO, which means it was hot on the heels of Everquest and Ultima Online; and released six months prior to World of Warcraft (which established the Tank/Healer/DPS trinity).

 

Prior to WoW, the "Holy Trinity" was Tank/Healer/Mezzer. Issue 0 CoH conforms to this to an extent (CoV does not), which is why Blasters have Beanbag (or an equivalent) in most of their primaries and nearly every secondary starts with an immob or a knockback. The biggest exception the OG devs made to the Everquest Trinity was turning the (frankly boring) MMO 1.0 healer into a buffer/debuffer. Which were things "healers" often did but were never their primary calling. That was CoH's biggest mold break, and I still remember having a blast shortly after launch running with organized teams of 8 defenders of various types getting a feel for how powerful the buffs/debuffs really were.

 

CoH just grew in ways the OG devs never anticipated; and had grown out of the Tank/Healer/Mezzer "Holy Trinity" before Issue 1 even came out. Heck, the original design intent for armor sets was that tankers/scrappers would run maybe one or two of their toggles at a time and switch between them depending on what they were fighting. It's why they have a recharge time, because they expected we'd be turning them on and off in combat.

 

Fortunately, the game's core mechanics (things like character movement, responsiveness to player controls, character creation, and the core gameplay loop) were really fun and ones the devs dialed in on that they usually delivered more of the things we enjoyed. The additions they made over time (like sidekicking/exemplaring in all of its forms) to make the game more accessable were a huge boon as well. And the devs never really tried to re-establish any form of "Holy Trinity," which was to our benefit in the long run. The fact that we can engage with nearly all the content with any AT combination and make it work 99.9% of the time is a good thing. We were doing that back in Issue 0 and we're still doing it today. If, say, Stalkers weren't considered to be able to contribute materially to, say, Rikti Raids? This community would figure out a way to make a 100% Stalker Rikti Raid work. That's just what we do, and it's a blast every time.


Anyway, TLDR: CoH was designed before the modern MMO Tank/Healer/DPS "Holy Trinity" was a thing. It never tried to conform to something that didn't exist until 6 months after its release.

 

Asheron's Call says hello.  😉

[nihilii]

8 hours ago, macskull said:

Not exactly on-topic but to be entirely fair heroes did have some pretty significant advantages in PvP for a long time. Between IOs, the I13 changes, and various other changes since then, that's basically gone away, but it wasn't entirely a fair fight for a long time.

Yes, but that's the thing. On Vigilance HEROES argued VILLAINS were overpowered.

There was an extremely small group of dedicated PvPers who kept up and played by US tactics; when they rolled into the zones with their fire blasters, spine scrappers and empaths, they decimated any opposition. But many other players, at least the vocal ones, seemed to harbor this illusion every villain was inherently twice as strong as a hero.

I played concurrently on Freedom and Vigilance for a time. You could spot the perception shift logging into the same PVP zone the same day on both servers. Which to me was yet another illustration of knowledge asymmetry in action. Even if zones were always the casual side of PVP regardless, there was a stark difference on either side of the pond. Language barrier coupled with low population kept most of us frogs in the prehistoric ages of CoH mechanics understanding for a long long time, especially in PVP where by nature you only rise up to meet up the level of challenge other players offer.

[rolandgrey]

My adherence to "Holy Trinity" team cohesion disappeared when a gamebreaker invited me to an all-Controller and Defender Moonfire TF.  I then watched as group after group after group melted before our eyes and we were done in twenty minutes.  This was before IOs and IO sets and in the midst of Enhancement Diversification.  I was absolutely floored.  The gamebreaker explained it simply:  Controllers synergize really well with each other, and City of Heroes's force multipliers are some of the best in any game you'll ever find.

 

Just one support character of any kind is a game changer in terms of party strength.  Debuffers cripple Giant Monsters, Arch Villains and Heroes.  Buffers turn teams into wrecking machines.  With that as a general rule, then it just becomes a question of "HOW do you want to win?" and not "What will it take to win?"

 

Of course, that leaves City of Heroes having entirely different debates (and sometimes arguments).  Sometimes players just don't understand the mechanics of a powerset and get angry somebody's introducing an entirely new strategy.  Back in the Paragon days, I had somebody yelling at me because I didn't despawn my MM's minions as I was throwing Envenom at Romulus.  Never mind that all my minions promptly died anyway, but then the team promptly stomped Romulus into two dimensions, despite all of the Heals he was getting (because at the time, Envenom caused a 100% Healing debuff, regardless of target; Romulus's healing Fluffy wasn't helping him anymore).  There was another time when Protector folks got to arguing about how best to tackle Hamidon, with one camp demanding that it be "ALL FIFTIES, ALL THE TIME!"  I was in the "Buffs are still helpful" camp, but the debate raged on about how "None of that matters to Hamidon!" which, from the regular Hamidon Raids I'm seeing on Torchbearer and how often the League leaders are ordering "Okay, buff up!" before attacking Hamidon, I think the "experts" back then might have been mistaken.

 

Damage, Tank, Healer may be the Holy Trinity of MMOs.  It's a perfectly viable team makeup in City of Heroes, too: a Blaster, a Tanker and an Empathy Defender.  You can play through all of the game's content like that, it's a solid team.  Heck, that can be the core of your team, with everybody else just being poutine on top.  However, Holy Trinity gameplay often becomes a chore, with Tankers being demanded to spam taunt in order to crowd control, Empathy Defenders demanded to only spam the heals and Blasters to focus on only using the "strat du jour" that the team leader thinks they need to use.  It leads to a tunnel vision in team build, where a team leader gets stressed that he hasn't built a proper party if it's all Tankers and a Grav/Kin Controller because the Grav/Kin Controller's "heal might miss," utterly ignoring everything else the Grav/Kin can do for the party. 

 

Don't be surprised when the other players you encounter have found other ways to play the game.  Ways that the game gives them the freedom to ignore the Holy Trinity.  Ways that give them freedom from the stress of having to adhere to it.

Edited September 26, 2023 by rolandgrey

[Doomguide2005]

     I'm in the the need for the Holy Trinity never existed in this game.  I give you Green Machine as but one example.  A full team of SO only builds of Empaths could have existed from near as I know from day one even if Green Machine didn't itself exist for a number of issues.  And they could and did devastate any foes in their path.  The RO Network's all Defender (and Controller) SG teams existed in part as examples of non-trinity teams many issues before IOs even were a thing.  They all pretty much could curb stomp any foes they faced.  

[cranebump]

On 9/25/2023 at 2:00 PM, Andreah said:

I would rather like to see enemies acting smarter tactically rather than getting stat buffs.

 

it's very doable to make smarter AIs, and it's been done before. The problem is they very quickly become much, much better at it than players.  The computer's ability to observe and understand the situation, process and evaluate options, and execute them in a coordinated manner far exceeds a team of players' (ref: Boyd cycle).  The challenge for developers is to simulate how the enemy as a group would behave as if it were players with similarly limited abilities, and that's hard to get right. So we end up with harder enemies you have to Trinity to death, or boss-mechanic gimmick systems, that make you pat your head, rub your belly, and sing a tune at the same time to win.

 

Right? Simple things like "Snipers will stay at a distance and try to pick you off" (speaking of which, shouldn't every sniper have some form of stealth?). These guys fall right into mobs for easy destruction. Bosses that hit and run. Bosses that dive under cover when you're hovering and waiting on them. Bosses that try to pull you into the lava. Tactics. It'd be nice...

[Ringo]

13 minutes ago, cranebump said:

 

Right? Simple things like "Snipers will stay at a distance and try to pick you off" (speaking of which, shouldn't every sniper have some form of stealth?). These guys fall right into mobs for easy destruction. Bosses that hit and run. Bosses that dive under cover when you're hovering and waiting on them. Bosses that try to pull you into the lava. Tactics. It'd be nice...

I think trying to implement these things where they don't cause bugs in thousands of different missions and environments on a game running on 20 year old code is a bit of an undertaking

[Ringo]

On 9/25/2023 at 2:45 AM, MoonSheep said:

i think what OP is referring to with the view on “holy trinity” is that oldschool CoH required much more cooperation between support ATs, damage and tanky type characters

 

you’d often be very pleased to see a controller with ice slick or a rad to help buff and debuff. this would be complimented by a strong tank type lead to take the alpha, with blasters and scrappers ready to mash things up

 

this compares to modern HC CoH where the focus is primarily just on damage, as support ATs have less value

People *happy* to see an Ice Controller?  On Live?!

Now you're just making stuff up!

[Black Zot]

We already have bosses that hit and run.  They hit once and then they spend the next half hour running all over the damn map.

 

If anything, we need less of that BS.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Black Zot

[roleki]

On 9/25/2023 at 4:47 PM, Solarverse said:

 

Okay, I can die happy now. I just read the most insane metaphor I have ever heard, lol.

Aw shucks, that's just me trying to spread hepatitis remotely.  

[cranebump]

2 hours ago, Black Zot said:

We already have bosses that hit and run.  They hit once and then they spend the next half hour running all over the damn map.

 

If anything, we need less of that BS.

Don’t worry. The arc of the game is hurtling inexorably toward no challenge whatsoever, so…we’ll get there.:-)

[macskull]

7 minutes ago, cranebump said:

Don’t worry. The arc of the game is hurtling inexorably toward no challenge whatsoever, so…we’ll get there.:-)

Hello, it’s me, hard mode content

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, Black Zot said:

We already have bosses that hit and run.  They hit once and then they spend the next half hour running all over the damn map.

 

If anything, we need less of that BS.

 

Hello Mary MacComber

[Solarverse]

36 minutes ago, macskull said:

Hello, it’s me, hard mode content

 

I think he meant the rest of the game. Hard Mode content doesn't exactly make up a very significant portion of the game. Just taking a guess anyway.

[cranebump]

1 minute ago, Solarverse said:

 

I think he meant the rest of the game. Hard Mode content doesn't exactly make up a very significant portion of the game. Just taking a guess anyway.

That’s exactly what I meant. But then I should know if you go to a forum and post “Flip!” Someone will respond with, “Are you crazy? What about FLOP?”

[Andreah]

6 hours ago, cranebump said:

 

Right? Simple things like "Snipers will stay at a distance and try to pick you off" (speaking of which, shouldn't every sniper have some form of stealth?). These guys fall right into mobs for easy destruction. Bosses that hit and run. Bosses that dive under cover when you're hovering and waiting on them. Bosses that try to pull you into the lava. Tactics. It'd be nice...

Yes, it would be nice, but it wouldn't work well in our current game. It would need more systems like cover from obstacles, facing/orientation advantages and vulnerabilities, elevation and slope mechanics, and so on.  And once it had all those, if it didn't play havoc with the old code base; then we'd end up with hard-core team runners and rigid "get on voice and obey" mindsets. 

 

Really what I'd think would be more doable would be simulating a command hierarchy in the enemies we face, so that "bosses" have similar effects as commanders making decisions and directing troops, and not just the toughest of equally uncoordinated mobs. And many missions ought to have surveillance points and such, so that once the player team is 'discovered", enemy forces inside the mission react in some not-stupid ways. Give players an advantage for controlling a choke point. Or vice-versa, make players decide whether to take a position by brute force, or try to flank it. 

 

Generally have a series of systems and interactions happening that players could choose to interfere with or use to their advantage.  Meaningful decisions to make above and beyond the order of keys to tap in sequence to maximize dps.

 

Maybe it's best left as something to dream about for future games.