The reason it would take a month is due to the Rampages being on a rotation. I bet you can just do the same one multiple times and bank a dozen tokens. Do that for each one, then gear up multiple characters at once.
That would indeed be the most efficient way of doing things. But how many people do you
think will sit around doing something like that every day? Not many will grind that hard. Especially when a certain alert comes up.
I'm Concerned and I've tested your Precious Justice Gear and found the difference, Disturbing, it's bad enough that those that don't MinMax are left behind to struggle but this just adds insult to injury, I'll show you a links with two Exact builds, one using Heroic Gear the other, Justice.... If I can put that much of a difference, I'm rather Average, I can only imagine what you better builders can pull off, it's going to be greater despair, Getting that feeling 'Get Justice Gear or suffer, Hard'...
Granted it's to entice queuing Rampage Alerts and I guess something for those that are bored at 40, but once those that reap the rewards then move on, how is this going to help others?
This game wasn't designed to be fair. It was designed to be random. two of my sg teammates got Gravitar costume drops within their first 5 passes. i haven't gotten a single drop in nearly 400 tries. That's four... HUNDRED... tries. Random.
This game wasn't designed to be fair. It was designed to be random. two of my sg teammates got Gravitar costume drops within their first 5 passes. i haven't gotten a single drop in nearly 400 tries. That's four... HUNDRED... tries. Random.
Same here.
I got bunch of Gravitar's boots, boots, boots... and I'm sure if I didn't give/sell them, my bank was filled out with those boots! and my bank vault smackwell. Never got top as drop so far.
I can't say I trust Cryptic fully in coming up with reasonable drop rates.
The tokens should be 100% guaranteed each time a Rampage Alert is successfully completed. It's already a huge PITA for Gravitar to drop a single piece of costume unlock for e.g. At least make the tokens guaranteed rewards to make up for it.
Same here.
I got bunch of Gravitar's boots, boots, boots... and I'm sure if I didn't give/sell them, my bank was filled out with those boots! and my bank vault smackwell. Never got top as drop so far.
It's because you keep being in the same team as luci. :O
I'm sorry, I can't see this working if it took a month to gear up just one toon. Which is a good reason why the tokens are bound to account and not character. I have 70+ toons, I don't want to spend 70+ months to gear them all up. That would be to tedious.
Don't forget that we will see the next new shiny top gear then maybe in 6-12 months.
That's an interesting thing to consider. If they let us get the gear very quickly, then in a month we'll all be right back to complaining about no endgame goals, and then they'll have to ship out even more powerful gear... then we'll get that in a month, and they'll do it again. Then a few months down the line, all you people who aren't complaining about the game being too easy will also be complaining about it being too easy since we'll all be running around with unkillable top-tier damage dealers that one shot everything and kill bosses in 10 seconds.
Or, they just won't, and we'll just sit there complaining that there's nothing worth doing, nothing gives any meaningful rewards, and all their work will have been for nothing, just a temporary stop gap.
We wanted >>>long-term<<< goals didn't we? Or did we really just want another short term goal to just "get it over with" and get back to complaining that there's nothing worth doing?
What if they quadrupled the number of tokens required, but made it a 100% drop chance?
I can accept if they significantly increased the number of tokens required provided they are made 100% guaranteed rewards.
Using silver merits as a reference for unlocking of the heroic gear, each piece can currently be unlocked with just 2 days of UNITY overwatch guaranteed, but only because UNITY overwatch is trivial in difficulty. Legion gear should be left out since they're lockbox exclusives.
If Justice gear is going to be the next non-lockbox merit-based endgame gear then I have no problem keeping them behind Rampage alerts that are pretty up there in failure risk as long as we're rightfully rewarded a token each time we're successful. Like mentioned, an average of two weeks of rampage-grinding looks reasonable enough, so go ahead and jack up the number of tokens required.
We wanted >>>long-term<<< goals didn't we? Or did we really just want another short term goal to just "get it over with" and get back to complaining that there's nothing worth doing?
No. I want content to have high replay value without resorting to grindfest. It's not a long term goal if they're making content to shove grind in your face. Long term goal is to make rampages right the first time and making them fun so that they stand on their own without the need for bribes.
I want fights that you leave going "OMG that was AWESOME! Let's do it again!"
Same here.
I got bunch of Gravitar's boots, boots, boots... and I'm sure if I didn't give/sell them, my bank was filled out with those boots! and my bank vault smackwell. Never got top as drop so far.
About time someone actually mentions what good content is. Something this game sorely lacks. We also need new zones that are actually fun and not grindfests without any atmosphere (looking at you, vibora bay!).
then it is too bad we wont be getting any new Zones.
No. I want content to have high replay value without resorting to grindfest. It's not a long term goal if they're making content to shove grind in your face. Long term goal is to make rampages right the first time and making them fun so that they stand on their own without the need for bribes.
I want fights that you leave going "OMG that was AWESOME! Let's do it again!"
What does that have to do with Justice Gear though? u3u
We all want that content... well except that guy... but that doesn't change the fact that we also wanted long term goals rather than just another short grind.
What does that have to do with Justice Gear though? u3u
We all want that content... well except that guy... but that doesn't change the fact that we also wanted long term goals rather than just another short grind.
You asked about long term goals and not having anything to do. If content has high replay value on it's own without having to bribe people with a long gear grind, the content has long term value in that people will play it even if they have all the gear. People are going to get their gear and complain there is nothing to do until the next grind fest.
A long term goal that revolves around a gear grind is not what I want. I'd rather just buy my gear on the AH than play something just to grind up some fancy new armor.
I understand your concern. That would be a lot of alts to equip. I am thinking about how long it takes to get various types of gear.
Full set of SCR = 6 days.
Full set of purple Q secondaries = 450,000 Q. Everyone's grind tolerance varies, but at 10K per day that would take a month and a half.
Legion Gear = crap shoot and potentially lots of real money.
Rank 8 mods = 125 rank 5s plus a certain number of fail safe catalysts. How long does it take to accumulate 125 rank 5s of anything? Sure, one can buy mods with globals, but then one has to accumulate the globals.
So, if someone wanted a really top tier set of gear for one of his/her alts it's going to take a serious amount of time, no matter what.
For me getting the complete set of purple Q secondaries was an interesting challenge once. Just can't see doing it for all my alts. SCRs are a trivial effort, so every one gets those. I can probably equip most of my lvl 40s with rank 6 mods, a few with 7s, maybe one with 8s. So, for me, a month for a full set of Justice Gear (assuming maybe 2 rampages a day), given the boost that the full set gives, would be tolerable, given all the other considerations above.
Maybe I'm just comfortable with the thought that not all my heroes will be at the very pinnacle. I know I can handle all the PVE content with SCRs with ranks 5s and lvl 40 purple secondaries, everything above that is gravy.
I'm sorry, I can't see this working if it took a month to gear up just one toon. Which is a good reason why the tokens are bound to account and not character. I have 70+ toons, I don't want to spend 70+ months to gear them all up. That would be to tedious.
It's a dated team mechanic that limits freedom of choices and builds and often constricts and further constricts builds and options. It depends on poor AI and prevents the AI from ever being improved, and makes combat and teamplay increasingly LESS dynamic. There is nothing, EVER dynamic about holy trinity play.
Every single situation has to play EXACTLY the same for a holy trinity. Every time the AI HAS to be stupid enough to target the tank and stupid enough to be baited into ignoring everyone else who is actually a real threat. You end up with a situation where everyone stands in one spot spamming the most damaging attacks or looking at the health bar and ignoring the actual situation while the tank guy just pretty much keeps the badguy focused on him.
EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER ENDS UP GOING THAT WAY WITH NO EXCEPTIONS WHEN THE HOLY TRINITY BECOMES APPARENT.
That, above, results in repetitiveness and stagnation that ultimately gets alot of people turned away when they see that. So you often then end up with carrot-on-a-stick approaches trying to keep people playing, because in the end all of your encounters end up the same people get bored eventually.
What games have you played that ended up like that? For the games I've played that had the holy trinity, the fights were never boring or dull or repetitive, there was always dynamics, and they always had everyone using more than one or two powers. The options were only limited by the classes. In a game were there are no classes such as CO, the holy trinity just extends options. Not limit it. Almost all power sets can be tanks, almost all powersets can be dps, almost all powersets can be healers. There is no limitations. The only powerset that can't do all three is the telepathy power set. But, than again, my telepathy tank does fine, as does the dot master telepathy I have.
Its obvious you are against the holy trinity. But what you are saying vs what is really happening in games is not the same.
I understand your concern. That would be a lot of alts to equip. I am thinking about how long it takes to get various types of gear.
Full set of SCR = 6 days.
Full set of purple Q secondaries = 450,000 Q. Everyone's grind tolerance varies, but at 10K per day that would take a month and a half.
Legion Gear = crap shoot and potentially lots of real money.
Rank 8 mods = 125 rank 5s plus a certain number of fail safe catalysts. How long does it take to accumulate 125 rank 5s of anything? Sure, one can buy mods with globals, but then one has to accumulate the globals.
You can buy all of those things with money. Real money. You can even buy globals with real money. Buy something from the Z-store and dump it on the auction house. No grind required. I let other people do the grinding for me. And honestly, it's not hard to get tons of money just by playing the game casually.
I don't know how fire and ice has changed since the previous twitch stream, being a filthy silver and all, so I can't say a whole lot about it. I do know that I was initially excited until I saw that stream and was immediately crushed at how boring it looked. The only thing I can do is wait and see how it turns out once it goes live.
However, it seems the devs are putting a lot of effort into making it be a grind just to get new gear.
PWE will make Cryptic do whatever they want them to do. Be happy that Cryptic is even asking for our opinions and implementing what they can.
Personally I don't care all that much. The things I truly want will never happen, so I am just along for the ride at this point.
Co has an aging engine that apparently was coded so horribly it is barely holding itself together, so I would never expect any encounter that will be trend setting, or too original that they can get far away for the trinity. Expecting such will only lead to disappointment.
I'm pretty sure I've done some Gravitar runs where there was no healer present, and we won. First time my friends and I did TT we had 2 dps and 2 tanks and did fine. Not saying that there aren't times when a healer doesn't make some things easier. Just never found it mandatory to be successful.
Edit: And I'm going to say, the holy trinity SEVERELY limits options. You HAVE TO HAVE A HEALER SO TEAMS WILL ALWAYS END UP THE SAME! Thats not freedom, thats not balance.
Well apparently foxi solo'd it easily on their squishy PvP toon.
Also there is nothing wrong with having a use for a healer or a tank. That's like saying they may as well take team heals and threat mechanics out of the game. "Every man for himself people!" Nothing wrong with needing a healer in content or someone can soak the damage so the squishy dps wont be one shot. Some people like playing healers and tanks you know, infact a lot of people do.
I got a fun game for ya. Take a shot every time somebody says holy trinity and dodge nerf in the past three pages.
Now that you're plastered, go play Fire & Ice, cause it's a fun Rampage. Seems pretty good to me, compared to other things in the game. Requires coordination, knowledge, some good players, and a bit of luck.
I got a fun game for ya. Take a shot every time somebody says holy trinity and dodge nerf in the past three pages.
Now that you're plastered, go play Fire & Ice, cause it's a fun Rampage. Seems pretty good to me, compared to other things in the game. Requires coordination, knowledge, some good players, and a bit of luck.
I like.
Well said.
I actually think fire and ice is one of the funnest things I've done in CO PvE so far since 2009 when the game was actually challenging.
Lauginxan is right guys. your ignoring him only serves to emphasize your own closedminded tunnel vision philosophy.
I would consider when someone comments in a thread stating how something needs to be just as he/she says and will not listen to any other ideas to be pretty close-minded.
Once someone states what I want as fact, when they have never spoken to me, then I ignore that person. Just because you and Lauginxan think an alert needs to be one way, does mean that is how it should be.
I stopped reading at the part where he said City of Heroes avoided being a holy trinity.
The difference between CoH and all other MMOs with a trinity foundation, is that CoH made it very possible to evolve oneself beyond the perceived limitations.
It was very possible to create Tanks there that did DPS to rival the best. Or for trollers to lock down mobs so efficiently that even alone they could easily handle missions solo set for +4X5. Or Defenders who with the right approach became Offenders and capable of soloing the most powerful Giant Monsters in the game.
Or my personal best the blaster Bentley Berkeley of virtue, who among other things once went solo into the chaos of a mother ship raid, and single handedly dealt so much DPS, and holding so much aggro that I had the raid director ******** at me about messing up his raid even as I was doing far more alone then 4 groups of 8 players following the basic tank and spank approach.
When a well made tank out dps's the average DPS player, and a Blaster can outlast legions of average players and create an impact in a huge raid that attracts other players attention beyond the chaos of the battle, I find it laughable to call that game a hard core holy trinity.
The trinity in CoH where training wheels left behind by competent players within a handful of months of regular play.
I'd rather have the holy trinity than have everyone capable of soloing everything (like 99.99% of this game).
So go play wow thats the best holy trinity game out there, as well as the best hard core raid scene. People asking for either just need to go there. Its really that easy.
...and the trinity still existed in that game anyway, regardless of how possible it was to deviate from it if you wanted to. Someone eventually is going to be the meat shield since the enemy has to attack players, someone eventually is going to play healer/buffer for those desperate moments and everyone else most likely just do all out DPS. The role deviancy and substituting do not cancel out trinity when it comes to teams. They just make the trinity less apparent.
That's also why complaints about this game having trinity aspects to it come across as ridiculous.
That's also why complaints about this game having trinity aspects to it come across as ridiculous.
CO is not really subtle about being a trinity game. Three of the four CO roles have names directly related to their trinity role. And the fourth is a hybrid of trinity roles, and not surprisingly named "hybrid".
The difference between CoH and all other MMOs with a trinity foundation, is that CoH made it very possible to evolve oneself beyond the perceived limitations.
It was very possible to create Tanks there that did DPS to rival the best. Or for trollers to lock down mobs so efficiently that even alone they could easily handle missions solo set for +4X5. Or Defenders who with the right approach became Offenders and capable of soloing the most powerful Giant Monsters in the game.
Or my personal best the blaster Bentley Berkeley of virtue, who among other things once went solo into the chaos of a mother ship raid, and single handedly dealt so much DPS, and holding so much aggro that I had the raid director ******** at me about messing up his raid even as I was doing far more alone then 4 groups of 8 players following the basic tank and spank approach.
When a well made tank out dps's the average DPS player, and a Blaster can outlast legions of average players and create an impact in a huge raid that attracts other players attention beyond the chaos of the battle, I find it laughable to call that game a hard core holy trinity.
The trinity in CoH where training wheels left behind by competent players within a handful of months of regular play.
No. No no no no no. CoH was one of the most unbalanced MMOs ever released and sustained. Punchvoke FORCED the holy trinity into the game whether you liked it or not and there was a MASSIVE surge of power to one point of the holy trinity (healers). It was actually the best idea ever to blow off the holy trinity and stack 7 defenders/corruptors and 1 brute/scrapper. Tankers, even offensive ones, were largely ignored/thrown to the side, there were a ton of hilariously bad choices (Peacebringer hahahahaha). For all the talk of "Oh the game allowed choice" you seriously forget that the game was incredibly brain dead easy save for some exceptions AND those exceptions obviously required a ridiculously min maxed team (good luck doing a MoLRSF without the trinity).
Realize that this is coming from someone who played a Brute that did enough DPS to solo Giant Monsters and was able to duo Incarnate Trials. The "choices" were effectively "Is your set able to handle IOs" and then "Are you a competent set." For all the choice that there was, 75% of the stuff effectively either gimped you, or made tons of things impossible.
People need to stop raging on the concept of the trinity because the problem ISN'T the trinity, it's the AI. If there was a way for tanks to do things like cover people, take the hit, etc (see also, EQ 2) while making them semi dangerous, then there's nothing lost about it. Instead, people would rather remove two non selfish roles and replace them with, what, DPS, DPS, DPS? Or instead roll into the CoH route of support (solution to ANY problem is to throw defenders at it) and hilariously negate the other characters if you didn't run something that stacked?
There's some serious kneejerking going on around here and people set their sights on specific targets without really understanding why such things are good (and bad). Understanding is hard and may require some work or shifting your own viewpoint and most everyone has trouble doing even that.
Comments
think will sit around doing something like that every day? Not many will grind that hard. Especially when a certain alert comes up.
This game wasn't designed to be fair. It was designed to be random. two of my sg teammates got Gravitar costume drops within their first 5 passes. i haven't gotten a single drop in nearly 400 tries. That's four... HUNDRED... tries. Random.
Same here.
I got bunch of Gravitar's boots, boots, boots... and I'm sure if I didn't give/sell them, my bank was filled out with those boots! and my bank vault smackwell. Never got top as drop so far.
The tokens should be 100% guaranteed each time a Rampage Alert is successfully completed. It's already a huge PITA for Gravitar to drop a single piece of costume unlock for e.g. At least make the tokens guaranteed rewards to make up for it.
It's because you keep being in the same team as luci. :O
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Don't forget that we will see the next new shiny top gear then maybe in 6-12 months.
Or, they just won't, and we'll just sit there complaining that there's nothing worth doing, nothing gives any meaningful rewards, and all their work will have been for nothing, just a temporary stop gap.
We wanted >>>long-term<<< goals didn't we? Or did we really just want another short term goal to just "get it over with" and get back to complaining that there's nothing worth doing?
What if they quadrupled the number of tokens required, but made it a 100% drop chance?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Using silver merits as a reference for unlocking of the heroic gear, each piece can currently be unlocked with just 2 days of UNITY overwatch guaranteed, but only because UNITY overwatch is trivial in difficulty. Legion gear should be left out since they're lockbox exclusives.
If Justice gear is going to be the next non-lockbox merit-based endgame gear then I have no problem keeping them behind Rampage alerts that are pretty up there in failure risk as long as we're rightfully rewarded a token each time we're successful. Like mentioned, an average of two weeks of rampage-grinding looks reasonable enough, so go ahead and jack up the number of tokens required.
No. I want content to have high replay value without resorting to grindfest. It's not a long term goal if they're making content to shove grind in your face. Long term goal is to make rampages right the first time and making them fun so that they stand on their own without the need for bribes.
I want fights that you leave going "OMG that was AWESOME! Let's do it again!"
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Whhhuuuuaaaahh?
XS
then it is too bad we wont be getting any new Zones.
Thats luck actually. The entire thing about top this or top that does not reward better rewards in rampages.
What does that have to do with Justice Gear though? u3u
We all want that content... well except that guy... but that doesn't change the fact that we also wanted long term goals rather than just another short grind.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
You asked about long term goals and not having anything to do. If content has high replay value on it's own without having to bribe people with a long gear grind, the content has long term value in that people will play it even if they have all the gear. People are going to get their gear and complain there is nothing to do until the next grind fest.
A long term goal that revolves around a gear grind is not what I want. I'd rather just buy my gear on the AH than play something just to grind up some fancy new armor.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Full set of SCR = 6 days.
Full set of purple Q secondaries = 450,000 Q. Everyone's grind tolerance varies, but at 10K per day that would take a month and a half.
Legion Gear = crap shoot and potentially lots of real money.
Rank 8 mods = 125 rank 5s plus a certain number of fail safe catalysts. How long does it take to accumulate 125 rank 5s of anything? Sure, one can buy mods with globals, but then one has to accumulate the globals.
So, if someone wanted a really top tier set of gear for one of his/her alts it's going to take a serious amount of time, no matter what.
For me getting the complete set of purple Q secondaries was an interesting challenge once. Just can't see doing it for all my alts. SCRs are a trivial effort, so every one gets those. I can probably equip most of my lvl 40s with rank 6 mods, a few with 7s, maybe one with 8s. So, for me, a month for a full set of Justice Gear (assuming maybe 2 rampages a day), given the boost that the full set gives, would be tolerable, given all the other considerations above.
Maybe I'm just comfortable with the thought that not all my heroes will be at the very pinnacle. I know I can handle all the PVE content with SCRs with ranks 5s and lvl 40 purple secondaries, everything above that is gravy.
I don't see what people have against threat mechanics or someone healing their team really.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
What games have you played that ended up like that? For the games I've played that had the holy trinity, the fights were never boring or dull or repetitive, there was always dynamics, and they always had everyone using more than one or two powers. The options were only limited by the classes. In a game were there are no classes such as CO, the holy trinity just extends options. Not limit it. Almost all power sets can be tanks, almost all powersets can be dps, almost all powersets can be healers. There is no limitations. The only powerset that can't do all three is the telepathy power set. But, than again, my telepathy tank does fine, as does the dot master telepathy I have.
Its obvious you are against the holy trinity. But what you are saying vs what is really happening in games is not the same.
You can buy all of those things with money. Real money. You can even buy globals with real money. Buy something from the Z-store and dump it on the auction house. No grind required. I let other people do the grinding for me. And honestly, it's not hard to get tons of money just by playing the game casually.
I don't know how fire and ice has changed since the previous twitch stream, being a filthy silver and all, so I can't say a whole lot about it. I do know that I was initially excited until I saw that stream and was immediately crushed at how boring it looked. The only thing I can do is wait and see how it turns out once it goes live.
However, it seems the devs are putting a lot of effort into making it be a grind just to get new gear.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Personally I don't care all that much. The things I truly want will never happen, so I am just along for the ride at this point.
Co has an aging engine that apparently was coded so horribly it is barely holding itself together, so I would never expect any encounter that will be trend setting, or too original that they can get far away for the trinity. Expecting such will only lead to disappointment.
Also there is nothing wrong with having a use for a healer or a tank. That's like saying they may as well take team heals and threat mechanics out of the game. "Every man for himself people!" Nothing wrong with needing a healer in content or someone can soak the damage so the squishy dps wont be one shot. Some people like playing healers and tanks you know, infact a lot of people do.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Now that you're plastered, go play Fire & Ice, cause it's a fun Rampage. Seems pretty good to me, compared to other things in the game. Requires coordination, knowledge, some good players, and a bit of luck.
I like.
Deliciously nutritious!
I gave up after a bit... I'm gonna guess it's more than 30 counting sigs and quotes... good thing it was just soda and nothing more heh.
@Aleatha1011 in CO | Keeper of the Cheesecake since Nov. 2011| Bunni BOT is on PRIMUS! | Come check out my deviantart page!
Well said.
I actually think fire and ice is one of the funnest things I've done in CO PvE so far since 2009 when the game was actually challenging.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Sig and Quotes count once, I'm not trying to kill you.
Deliciously nutritious!
I'm sure I don't want to do rampage with ALL HEALER+TANK 10 ppl team. o3o
I stopped reading at the part where he said City of Heroes avoided being a holy trinity.
Used leather footwear always smack very very well!! (◉◞౪◟◉)
WTB oxygen I pay for any amount or I die.
[Takes a shot.]
You guys laugh, totally should do this plastered. The immense gigglefits that will follow.
Deliciously nutritious!
I would consider when someone comments in a thread stating how something needs to be just as he/she says and will not listen to any other ideas to be pretty close-minded.
Once someone states what I want as fact, when they have never spoken to me, then I ignore that person. Just because you and Lauginxan think an alert needs to be one way, does mean that is how it should be.
The difference between CoH and all other MMOs with a trinity foundation, is that CoH made it very possible to evolve oneself beyond the perceived limitations.
It was very possible to create Tanks there that did DPS to rival the best. Or for trollers to lock down mobs so efficiently that even alone they could easily handle missions solo set for +4X5. Or Defenders who with the right approach became Offenders and capable of soloing the most powerful Giant Monsters in the game.
Or my personal best the blaster Bentley Berkeley of virtue, who among other things once went solo into the chaos of a mother ship raid, and single handedly dealt so much DPS, and holding so much aggro that I had the raid director ******** at me about messing up his raid even as I was doing far more alone then 4 groups of 8 players following the basic tank and spank approach.
When a well made tank out dps's the average DPS player, and a Blaster can outlast legions of average players and create an impact in a huge raid that attracts other players attention beyond the chaos of the battle, I find it laughable to call that game a hard core holy trinity.
The trinity in CoH where training wheels left behind by competent players within a handful of months of regular play.
So go play wow thats the best holy trinity game out there, as well as the best hard core raid scene. People asking for either just need to go there. Its really that easy.
...and the trinity still existed in that game anyway, regardless of how possible it was to deviate from it if you wanted to. Someone eventually is going to be the meat shield since the enemy has to attack players, someone eventually is going to play healer/buffer for those desperate moments and everyone else most likely just do all out DPS. The role deviancy and substituting do not cancel out trinity when it comes to teams. They just make the trinity less apparent.
That's also why complaints about this game having trinity aspects to it come across as ridiculous.
Why Don't You Go Play Wow Or Another Mmo?
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
CO is not really subtle about being a trinity game. Three of the four CO roles have names directly related to their trinity role. And the fourth is a hybrid of trinity roles, and not surprisingly named "hybrid".
L...o...l
.
No. No no no no no. CoH was one of the most unbalanced MMOs ever released and sustained. Punchvoke FORCED the holy trinity into the game whether you liked it or not and there was a MASSIVE surge of power to one point of the holy trinity (healers). It was actually the best idea ever to blow off the holy trinity and stack 7 defenders/corruptors and 1 brute/scrapper. Tankers, even offensive ones, were largely ignored/thrown to the side, there were a ton of hilariously bad choices (Peacebringer hahahahaha). For all the talk of "Oh the game allowed choice" you seriously forget that the game was incredibly brain dead easy save for some exceptions AND those exceptions obviously required a ridiculously min maxed team (good luck doing a MoLRSF without the trinity).
Realize that this is coming from someone who played a Brute that did enough DPS to solo Giant Monsters and was able to duo Incarnate Trials. The "choices" were effectively "Is your set able to handle IOs" and then "Are you a competent set." For all the choice that there was, 75% of the stuff effectively either gimped you, or made tons of things impossible.
People need to stop raging on the concept of the trinity because the problem ISN'T the trinity, it's the AI. If there was a way for tanks to do things like cover people, take the hit, etc (see also, EQ 2) while making them semi dangerous, then there's nothing lost about it. Instead, people would rather remove two non selfish roles and replace them with, what, DPS, DPS, DPS? Or instead roll into the CoH route of support (solution to ANY problem is to throw defenders at it) and hilariously negate the other characters if you didn't run something that stacked?
There's some serious kneejerking going on around here and people set their sights on specific targets without really understanding why such things are good (and bad). Understanding is hard and may require some work or shifting your own viewpoint and most everyone has trouble doing even that.