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bareel
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Lately many discussions have touched upon the topic of the so called 'Holy Trinity' design and yet it seems many define it differently from one another. To that end I figured a detailed look at the trinity and discussion would be beneficial for everyone.
What is the Trinity?
The trinity is the popular, common, and now iconic concept of having three primary roles that form the backbone of a group. Tank, DPS, and Healer. Their are also many sub-roles depending on the particular game as well. This design is popular for many reasons the primary one being it is very easy to design content for and it is recognizable for veterans of the genre. There are a few important things to understand about trinity design including a detailed defining of the roles, a look at what is required to create the roles, and finally a look at STO compared to the classic Trinity.
Roles Defined
Tank: The tank takes damage. The two important qualities required to be the tank are the ability to reduce the damage from enemies and ability to make the enemies attack them. In the trinity system a true tank will take as little as half or even one quarter of the damage from an enemy attack when compared to the others.
DPS: The DPS deals damage. They deal tons of damage typically about twice as much as a tank and up to four times as much as the healer.
Healer: Simply put the healer, heals. They keep the tank alive primarily and occasionally heal the DPS but not because they want to.
Secondary Roles: This can be anything from crowd control, to pulling, to utility,
off-tanking, backup healer, and many more depending on the game. These are typically not required though.
System Requirements for Trinity
This is a big part of the trinity style that is often overlooked during discussion. It is pretty easy to define the roles, and to see the qualities that a character wants for those roles. But what qualities or mechanics must the game have for a Trinity system to work?
Hyper Specialization: As I said when defining the roles it is not that a tank merely holds agro they also have the capability to significantly reduce incoming damage thanks to damage mitigation and/or avoidance. A 50 damage hit to the tank would typically deal anywhere from 100 to 200 damage against the other party members. The healer is typically the only one who can heal a significant amount during combat and the DPS will out damage the tank and healer combined by a large margin. They also have built in weaknesses the tank doesn't kill very fast, the DPS will die if a monster looks at him wrong, and the healer doesn't kill period. Many trinity games balance the group vs solo issue by allowing the characters to change gear/skills/styles between group and solo content.
Resources & Downtime: Another thing trinity games have are resource systems. Many characters have mana that is limited during combat, health does not regenerate during combat without heals which cost mana, and after a difficult combat encounter the party will need to rest to restore lost health and mana. This is important because it creates a desire for players to try and be efficient to minimize the amount of downtime during party play. In many good parties downtime can almost be eliminated completely whereas in solo play or extremely difficult content it cannot be. In addition many combats are simply attrition based, will the target die before the party exhausts all resources is the heart of the challenge.
Difficult Encounters: The final thing required for a trinity is that the combat encounters must be brutally difficult as to force the players to specialize if they wish to win. The DPS will die in ten seconds or so to the damage, the tank would take five minutes to kill a monster, and the healer has both of those problems. Many games accomplish this by applying a template to monsters drastically increasing their damage and hit points but not their level.
Trinity in STO
STO has many design differences from the standard trinity that are impossible to ignore. It lacks hyper specialization as every ship has the ability to self heal, damage mitigation differences are not that large between them, and while damage has gotten to the trinity point in some cases it is not enough on its own. Many ships passively regenerate more health over an encounter than another ship would be able to restore to it for crying out loud. Finally there is no downtime, and aside from a handful of long cooldowns this game also lacks the resource management that trinity games require.
PvP has Trinity NooB!
No, no it does not. At-least not the typical trinity. And note this is ignoring obviously broken pre-made combos but the roles in PvP are basically Kill (burst), Support (heal/cleanse/spam clear/etc), Setup (Subnuke/tractor/power drain/etc) and strangly enough that doesn't even apply universally to ship hulls. Some escort Kill ships pack Support and spider tank, a support cruiser may use a Setup eject warp plasma and so on.
Where to Look for Inspiration?
ARPGs. Diablo, Torchlight, Path of Exile and so on are the closest in design to what STO currently has. Think about it, little downtime, casual friendly, pew pew focused, and plenty of character customization/tweaking. In addition for the more hardcore you can focus on completion speed for your challenge just like in an ARPG.
Trinity, making it Happen
For those who are very stubborn and reaaly want to see a trinity here is what it would take and cost.
- Massive increase to overall HP, massive decrease to passive regen
- Moving of BOff abilities like EPTS, HE, TSS up from ensign to Lt for example
- Modification of Hulls escorts/Sci would have much less HP than cruisers
- Increase cooldown length on many boff abilities that are healing in nature
- Massive increase in game difficulty
Effects?
- Reduced variety and freedom in ship design. Additionally half of current ships would likely become worthless in groups.
- PvE queue would need redone or much fail would happen
- Barrier to entry for end game team play would be significantly larger
My Approach
I just happen to be hip deep in character design myself for the next PnP RPG my group and I will be playing and this tends to make me think alot more about the trinity and character design in general. The system is a heavily modified D20 and there are four player members which tends to scream trinity aside from everyone hates being the healer. So this is what I have done for the classes myself.
Fighter: Inspired heavily by 4th Ed DnD the fighter will deal consistent damage, excel at tanking large groups of weaker enemies, can manipulate enemy positioning, debuff enemy targets, and finally mitigate damage for his allies.
Rogue: Stupid high single target damage but inconsistent with lower hit chance, high avoidance defense but it will be streaky, high mobility, and finally a minor amount of CC against enemies.
Warlock: High AoE damage, strong debuffs, strong single target damage but his heavy hits are limited via resource.
War Priest: Struggling with him a bit he will have powerful buffs that also enhance himself. He will pan out similar to the fighter but be a bit better at defense against single hard hitting enemies and lack the enemy manipulation. Still working on a nitch for 'em beyond the buffing but that just might be good enough as is.
What is the Trinity?
The trinity is the popular, common, and now iconic concept of having three primary roles that form the backbone of a group. Tank, DPS, and Healer. Their are also many sub-roles depending on the particular game as well. This design is popular for many reasons the primary one being it is very easy to design content for and it is recognizable for veterans of the genre. There are a few important things to understand about trinity design including a detailed defining of the roles, a look at what is required to create the roles, and finally a look at STO compared to the classic Trinity.
Roles Defined
Tank: The tank takes damage. The two important qualities required to be the tank are the ability to reduce the damage from enemies and ability to make the enemies attack them. In the trinity system a true tank will take as little as half or even one quarter of the damage from an enemy attack when compared to the others.
DPS: The DPS deals damage. They deal tons of damage typically about twice as much as a tank and up to four times as much as the healer.
Healer: Simply put the healer, heals. They keep the tank alive primarily and occasionally heal the DPS but not because they want to.
Secondary Roles: This can be anything from crowd control, to pulling, to utility,
off-tanking, backup healer, and many more depending on the game. These are typically not required though.
System Requirements for Trinity
This is a big part of the trinity style that is often overlooked during discussion. It is pretty easy to define the roles, and to see the qualities that a character wants for those roles. But what qualities or mechanics must the game have for a Trinity system to work?
Hyper Specialization: As I said when defining the roles it is not that a tank merely holds agro they also have the capability to significantly reduce incoming damage thanks to damage mitigation and/or avoidance. A 50 damage hit to the tank would typically deal anywhere from 100 to 200 damage against the other party members. The healer is typically the only one who can heal a significant amount during combat and the DPS will out damage the tank and healer combined by a large margin. They also have built in weaknesses the tank doesn't kill very fast, the DPS will die if a monster looks at him wrong, and the healer doesn't kill period. Many trinity games balance the group vs solo issue by allowing the characters to change gear/skills/styles between group and solo content.
Resources & Downtime: Another thing trinity games have are resource systems. Many characters have mana that is limited during combat, health does not regenerate during combat without heals which cost mana, and after a difficult combat encounter the party will need to rest to restore lost health and mana. This is important because it creates a desire for players to try and be efficient to minimize the amount of downtime during party play. In many good parties downtime can almost be eliminated completely whereas in solo play or extremely difficult content it cannot be. In addition many combats are simply attrition based, will the target die before the party exhausts all resources is the heart of the challenge.
Difficult Encounters: The final thing required for a trinity is that the combat encounters must be brutally difficult as to force the players to specialize if they wish to win. The DPS will die in ten seconds or so to the damage, the tank would take five minutes to kill a monster, and the healer has both of those problems. Many games accomplish this by applying a template to monsters drastically increasing their damage and hit points but not their level.
Trinity in STO
STO has many design differences from the standard trinity that are impossible to ignore. It lacks hyper specialization as every ship has the ability to self heal, damage mitigation differences are not that large between them, and while damage has gotten to the trinity point in some cases it is not enough on its own. Many ships passively regenerate more health over an encounter than another ship would be able to restore to it for crying out loud. Finally there is no downtime, and aside from a handful of long cooldowns this game also lacks the resource management that trinity games require.
PvP has Trinity NooB!
No, no it does not. At-least not the typical trinity. And note this is ignoring obviously broken pre-made combos but the roles in PvP are basically Kill (burst), Support (heal/cleanse/spam clear/etc), Setup (Subnuke/tractor/power drain/etc) and strangly enough that doesn't even apply universally to ship hulls. Some escort Kill ships pack Support and spider tank, a support cruiser may use a Setup eject warp plasma and so on.
Where to Look for Inspiration?
ARPGs. Diablo, Torchlight, Path of Exile and so on are the closest in design to what STO currently has. Think about it, little downtime, casual friendly, pew pew focused, and plenty of character customization/tweaking. In addition for the more hardcore you can focus on completion speed for your challenge just like in an ARPG.
Trinity, making it Happen
For those who are very stubborn and reaaly want to see a trinity here is what it would take and cost.
- Massive increase to overall HP, massive decrease to passive regen
- Moving of BOff abilities like EPTS, HE, TSS up from ensign to Lt for example
- Modification of Hulls escorts/Sci would have much less HP than cruisers
- Increase cooldown length on many boff abilities that are healing in nature
- Massive increase in game difficulty
Effects?
- Reduced variety and freedom in ship design. Additionally half of current ships would likely become worthless in groups.
- PvE queue would need redone or much fail would happen
- Barrier to entry for end game team play would be significantly larger
My Approach
I just happen to be hip deep in character design myself for the next PnP RPG my group and I will be playing and this tends to make me think alot more about the trinity and character design in general. The system is a heavily modified D20 and there are four player members which tends to scream trinity aside from everyone hates being the healer. So this is what I have done for the classes myself.
Fighter: Inspired heavily by 4th Ed DnD the fighter will deal consistent damage, excel at tanking large groups of weaker enemies, can manipulate enemy positioning, debuff enemy targets, and finally mitigate damage for his allies.
Rogue: Stupid high single target damage but inconsistent with lower hit chance, high avoidance defense but it will be streaky, high mobility, and finally a minor amount of CC against enemies.
Warlock: High AoE damage, strong debuffs, strong single target damage but his heavy hits are limited via resource.
War Priest: Struggling with him a bit he will have powerful buffs that also enhance himself. He will pan out similar to the fighter but be a bit better at defense against single hard hitting enemies and lack the enemy manipulation. Still working on a nitch for 'em beyond the buffing but that just might be good enough as is.
Post edited by bareel on
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I need to know so I can make a Gorn and fly the IKS Iksar.
This is something that I've found to be somewhat quirky about STO. While I'm no fan of the Trinity, gear progression, etc, etc, etc... STO is pretty quirky about it.
In a "typical" MMO - you have Dungeon X you run until you gear up to run Dungeon Y you run until you gear up to run Dungeon Z you run until you gear up to run Raid A you run...etc, etc, etc.
In STO...well...you can complete the optionals in any of the ESTFs with your mix of green, blue, and purp Mk IX/X/XI gear from just leveling up. You don't have to run STF X so you can run STF Y so you can run STF Z so you can run ESTF A so you...etc, etc, etc.
Yet, there is STF gear. Mk X, Mk XI, and Mk XII. You don't need it to complete it. By farming for the gear, you can farm the ESTFs faster (more efficiently) - but that's so you can...er...yeah...farm faster. It's a way to get Dil, make some ECs, etc.
I think I saw you ask in another thread if there was a major change in the dev team at some point, because there are several things like this. There's a gear progression - but there's not a gear progression. There's the Trinity - but there's not the Trinity. Etc, etc, etc...
The math behind gear is actually one of the few things they have done very well on. Actually the math in general aside from a few quirky mechanic interactions is rock solid for one really simple reason.
It is all additive. In most games your stuff all multiplies. If you get upgrades of +10 on three pieces it ends up being 10 x 10 x 10 where as in STO it ends up being 10+10+10 simply put. In addition it does not allow you to modify some values beyond a set threshold like bonuses to hit points for hull. Other systems operate independently from one another to avoid multiplicative stacking as well, for example equipping a field generator (+shield total) has no effect on the passive shield regeneration value.
Fortunately for Cryptic most of the players lack the understanding of the math which allows items to sell. Take the purple Mk 12 tac consoles for instance that add a truly pathetic amount of damage compared to the far cheaper purple Mk 11, or even blue Mk 11 really. Yet they sell for a ton. This drives the 'progression' mentality that makes them money as people buy lockbox keys to sell for the EC to get the 1% boost.
Other things though, like the Maco +10% universal resist is extremely powerful and worth far more than the single [Reg] mod it sacrificed for it and show real power creep. But those are the exception not the rule.
And that is another reason I think a team swap happened. Those romulan +Crit boffs/Rep bonus/Console really changed the face of DPS and are why it has skyrocketed this most recent season. They represent a shift in the design approach and I fear what silly stupid power creep we will see next time.
But really once again this just reminds me of the good old school ARPGs like Diablo 2. Getting geared enough to beat the game/farm was not that difficult and the math was mostly additive. Diablo 3 on the other hand, lets just say that game is the best example of why * is dangerous in game math I have ever seen.
As for the randomness of the system design I'm going to place the blame squarely on Gozer leaving. Content creation and character design are tightly linked and dependent on one another. I would bet even if Gozer had little direct control of the systems team he was still used as a sound board and/or for advice. Only thing that makes sense. Was Gozer gone when they did the weapon power mechanic change way way back?
I remember in City of Villains when they changed dominators without nerfing anything else, they really made them great. Controllers still sucked but the villain side was almost well balanced except for the same class powersets. The villains epic ATs were also great.
STO should allow every class had the tools necessary to defeat one another in combat, but still being able to fulfil a specific role when working as part of a team. If you look at Diablo I, they also had a three-class trinity with the Warrior, Rogue and the Mage. Each class could learn and equip each other's weaponry and skills, but none of them could clearly match another class in terms of potency for a given area. Each class could use their respective skills to kill another in combat, but could also work together as a team. The same applied to Diablo II, even though abilities became limited by class.
To summarize:
Every class should have the option of working independently
but
Every class should also have the option of working together, thereby increasing their overall effectiveness
I agree with the idea of class trinity, but I disagree with the idea that all character classes and ships should be forcibly shoved into narrow, specialized roles. Design decision should account for the fact that while one ship may be better geared for one role than the other, it should not come at the expense of its ability to presumably defeat another vessel in combat.
If you are not going to have a PvE environment that allows the three main ship classes to fulfill roles, why have several ships that are clearly designed with roles?
We have Cruisers (Tank/Healer), Sci ships (Healer/CC/Debuff) and Escorts (Spike/DPS/Light Debuff).
The PvE environment is designed as such, that only one of those roles is ever necessary, and due to this is also the only role that is optimal and desired.
The people playing the other two ship classes, the ones whose roles are mostly a facade, constantly want their DPS to be better to be able to function in the PvE environment that only has a clearly designed space for one role.
If you aren't going to at least have "Trinity-light", what purpose do those 2 ship classes serve in pve?
The ships are not designed to fill specific roles at all. They are desgined to be similar but different with each having an offensive advantage (DHC/8th Gun/Sensor) and defensive (+Def/+hull/+shield) and so on. It is not working very well right now thanks to power creep but it is there.
Use Action RPGs as inspiration.
I'm sorry but I think you have clearly missed the design intent apparent in Cruisers and Sci ships.
They are very much designed with role intents.
I see another issue, you are under the incorrect assumption that all weapons were created to be equal, they were not.
You've also completely ignored BOFF slots and how that interacts with the Hull/Shield/Turn values of ships.
BOFF slots are a larger determining factor in what a ship is actually going to be capable of doing - and in many ways more so than "An 8th weapon slot".
In addition to this what kind of weapons a ship has access to, as well whether the design of the ship actually supports the use of those weapons* will also tell you what the role of the ship is. (*Carriers for example, can use narrow arc cannons but their ship design is clearly not in favor of doing this and is more a flavor addition than anything).
With all that being said, we have seen quite the proliferation of hybrid ships but I believe this is due to the need to drive new ship sales and the current ship lines are almost completely covered for every standard possible layout.
You're arguing against the trinity, but the trinity has already influenced the design of the ships.
The only thing the trinity hasn't influenced is the content environment where those ships perform.
Really now? Explain the following please.
1) Majority of heals being Ensign level
2) Every ship having the same EHP from base
3) Lack of hyper specialization
And boff abilities? HA!
All 3 types have the following: Offensive, Defensive, CC, cleanses, etc, etc. If there is a design intent for roles it is the absolute worst I have ever seen.
Do you realize that when pushed to the absolute min/max limit escorts have the best damage mitigation/avoidance numbers in the game? They are the tanks if you push trinity.
And for weapon damage output? All weapon damage is based on a simple formula where the firing arc determines the damage. The only reason why beams are so sucktastic is because of the penalty the current (note not original) weapon power drain mechanics apply to them.
They can push the trinity all they want, until they either redesign 90% of the game systems and mechanics it will continue to fail. Encounter design is not the answer either (beyond Starbase Blockade style) as when you do push things to such limits you both alienate a large portion of your playerbase and still fail as the escort is the best tank. Higher avoidance, same exact mitigation, makes it the most efficient choice for spending any form of 'healing resource' on. And no the amusing armor slot will not change that either.
What would be appropriate, is to use classes that are balanced to themselves. Think of, traditional COD, for example. You have an SMG that can sprint around (great for objective maps like capture the flag), a heavy MG that can lock down an approach, a sniper, etc. They are all capable of doing damage in different ways. This would work soo much better in the classless game environment we have now.
Anything you can do in private parties with trinity can be done with balanced classes too. You can have a tank and a healer, when you want them, without breaking the rest of the game.
edit--Trinity is not canon either. TOS, TNG, VOY, ENT, were all about one ship making its way, not about "where's my healer"
Trinity is wrong for this game. Period. It should be excised, from the space combat anyway.
All of the best, major and game changing heals take place at Lt or Ltc and higher.
Aux to SIF
TSS 2 or 3
ST 3
ET 3
Extend Shields (not a heal, but preventative).
The rest are base functionality powers that all ships get access to the same as how all ships have access to low level tactical skills.
This is because this game is trinity light, and not strict trinity.
I'm not arguing for strict trinity, I'm arguing for the roles that Cruisers & Sci ships excel at to be supported by a PvE content environment that allows them a chance to shine.
Sorry, EHP?
Already covered, several times in several posts. This game is not strict trinity, and I'm not arguing for that.
I'll ask you to at the very least attempt to see this before we can really have a meaningful conversation.
Already covered, again.
Passives have pushed their limits extremely high, I argue against these for PvP balance.
On the other hand, anyone pretending that a fully selfish Cruiser build and a fully selfish Escort build have "the same" survivability is clearly misinformed.
Feel free to take that up with Gecko, but I feel you've been extremely facetious strictly comparing an "Escort with Cannons vs. Escort with Beams" in the other thread.
Your post indicates that you think 250 degree arc weapons should ever be in the realm of a 45 degree arc weapon. They should not, and Gecko has already put his pronouncement on it. WAD.
You want to prove to me that escorts are the best tanks?
Ok, show me videos of all 4 elite STFs.
Make sure you have 6 ranks in threat control.
Use 7 beam arrays with BFAW, you're here for aggro control and not raw DPS after all.
Hold aggro for the entire team, the entire time.
Zipping around and staying alive while your friends explode is not "tanking".
There are a few superstar players I think can actually do this, but I want you to let me know if you think the average player could actually pull off the above.
For one thing, heals are split between the 2 'support' classes (though which specialization focuses on shields, and which on hull/health, varies depending on what environment you are playing in).
Secondly, when the game launched, even the devs would talk about sci ships 'shield tanking', implying tanking was never meant to be the sole domain of cruisers; and of course, now we have 'speed tanking' too.
Thirdly, sci ships, as originally designed, were lethal combatants; quite capable of ripping other ships a new one. This was before torpedo boats were really a thing; they mostly did their damage with powers.
Point four, one the ground, engineers can greatly enhance their damage output with the aid of pets, turrets, and explosives; played correctly, they can be more dangerous than most tac builds.
Seems to me that STO was designed to be played any which way we wanted; it's changes since then that have tried to shoehorn in a trinity system (with results that are... mixed).
Check gateway for bugoo@Kreael to see what I tank with if you want. Granted all my toons end up tanking even if I don't want them too. This weekend I'll tank the STFs in a group with you if you really want to see it. And it is not that I am highly skilled (I'm a baddie skill wise) it is that I know how this game and it's mechanics work, that is all it takes.
And that is the thing about trinity, there is no such thing as soft trinity it doesn't work. Otherwise these discussions wouldn't be taking place. You can either trust me that no matter how they design the content trinity still will not work, or you can continue to think that the content is the problem. Considering this game has been out for how many years and it still has the same exact problem it always has, that being if partaking in any form of progression you should fly an escort, I don't see them finding the solution any time soon.
Oh and EHP is Effective Hit Points. It means total health when you factor in all the built in avoidance and mitigation a character/ship has. And yes, all 3 have the same within a single % from stock.
character classes abilities:
tac:
atack pattern alpha - boost dmg (dps)
fire at my mark - dmg debuff (support)
tactical iniciative - self increase recharge of tac boff powers, respectivly increase dmg (dps)
go down fighting - self dmg buff (dps)
sci:
sensor scan - dmg debuff (support)
subnucleonic beam - clear buffs (support)
scatering field - increase team resist (support)
photonic fleet - give more targets npc to shoot at ( support)
eng:
rotate shield frequency - self heal+ resist (survival)
eps power transfer - self increase power levels (survival - it increase speed respectivly defence, shield power increase shield resistance and reg)
nadion reversion - self power levels resist buff (survival)
miracle worker - self hull shield heal (survival)
the last ability is team wide so ill include it as support for each class.
if you cant see some specialisation in this ...
more or less tac is specialised for dmg, sci for support, eng for survival, ie tank
lets take a look on ships
in general escorts have more tac consoles and boff station, which means greater boost to dps from consoles, and more dps oriented abilities.
sci ships, have more science consoles, and boff station which speaks for greater ability for control an heal skills.
crusers have more eng consoles which boost resistance, manuverability etc, boff stations too, which consist mostly from heals, resistance buffs and cleanise abilities
you cant deny there is specialisation here, not like in most games that use this model, but it still exist.
a cruser or sci cant match escort on dps, escort cant tank 20 enemies like i do in my cruser, escort cant heal others or contorl enemies like a sci ship can, nor the cruser.
altho i dont argue there is content in game that support using this specialisations, everything can be done in any ship, but character and ship specialisations still exist admit it or not.
There is specialization to a degree (though not a great degree, since we can put any officer in any ship); but it's not in a trinity pattern. 'Support' is not part of the trinity; but most of the strongest heals are engineering powers, so that's all science is left with as a specialization.
tac is dd
eng is tank/heal
sci is support
you still have 3 different roles, isnt that trinity ?
edit: and healing it its nature is a supprt function, so you can look on trinity as: tank, dps and support, exactly what we got here.
A science ship has to be the most effective, if there are 2 escorts and 2 cruisers in the team.
A cruiser has to be most effective, if there are 2 science ships and 2 escorts in the team.
A escort has to be most effective, if there are 2 science ships and 2 cruisers in the team.
3,4,5 ships of the same type should have diminishing returns and weaken the team.
Ideally this should be done with a complex interaction of skills and abilities. If it is to complicated, they should do it the lazy way:
If you are the only science ship you get +50% to everything.
If you are the only cruiser you get +50% to everything.
If you are the only escort you get +50% to everything.
That way the best team is at least 3 escorts + cruiser + sci-ship. And there is some value in having sci-ship or cruiser in the team.
are you saying the ships as they are delivered to as at this very current moment are not designed for specific roles ?
Honestly, knowledge of game mechanics already puts you in a pretty high zone outside of the realm of the average player.
And if you remember, my question was if you thought the average player could do it.
In an escort.
With beams.
With BFAW.
With Threat Control.
Not die repeatedly (I forgive the occasional, and practically inevitable one-shots most tanks eventually face).
Again, says you.
City of Heroes never specifically needed a tank, it never specifically needed a damage dealer, it never specifically needed a debuffer/buffer or controller, healer or anything in-between (and there were a lot of in-betweens)
Many classes had at least some method of defending themself, whether it be through pure mitigation, or enough offense to kill, or debuffs, buffs, controls, etc.
And yet, even with all of that, there was such a thing as synergistic pairings.
You didn't need an aggro holder, but missions went much smoother with one.
You didn't need a hard controller, but missions went much smoother with one.
You didn't need a buffer/debuffer, but the more you had the more you ran into massive force multiplication and could literally vaporize or ignore some of the hardest content.
No one was forced to be, or do anything. The game functioned, it functioned well and was fun and fast - it was a casual game for casual gamers that also managed to have some good challenging encounters.
STO? You need DPS that doesn't die 50x. Easy to do.
No other team comp is better, this is a poor environment and does not accommodate standard Sci Ships and Cruisers.
So you keep saying it can't be done, and I've seen it already be done.
To repeat, I'm not asking for a trinity. I'm asking for content that allows all roles to shine.
There is a very distinct difference, and I've yet to see you accept the line that exists between those two parts of the MMO spectrum.
Good luck factoring all of the variables that higher tier BOFF slots provide.
Thinking that a base number such as a 42k Hull (final number) escort, with even 50% resistance to all, has the same mitigation as a 55k Hull (final number) with 50% resistance to all Cruiser without taking into consideration the shield mod, or boff slots, or the fact that the Escorts greatest mitigation (speed defense) is all but ignored in PvE is just incorrect.
If you want to say you can have too much mitigation, outside of one shots, then yes I agree. That's the exact point I've been trying to make.
There is no PvE content that stresses, without one-shotting, Cruiser mitigation capabilities.
We dont have trinity we have an incomplete rock-paper-scissors model. All of the captain types and ship types are able to do damage and heal themselves, but not to the same extent. That is good basis for an RPS model, but what's missing are the tac>sci>eng>tac (or whatever) and ship-type roundabouts, instead we have Tac-Escort > ALL.
Ships should get a blind balance by size/mass/volume (differences in boff stations and consoles can stay), and RPS should be based on the captain traits only. A captain should be able to move between ships as appropriate to the scenario at hand--my Tac captain may need to fly a Defiant for a capture-the-flag type mission then switch to a carrier for a fleet-battle mission. Ideally the captain types would have nearly equal survivability with just 5-10% chance over the other class, close enough so that skill could make up the difference. Then you get anybody can fly the Defiant or the Carrier, the difference is just the captain abilities and player skill.
We are *very* close to this now, but the ship types have been incorporated into the RPS model (large escorts with faster turn rate than small cruisers), and that is where things get confuzzled. A flat balance of the ships would probably correct most of the problem
Tank > DPS > Healer is not synergistic. It is efficient. There is a huge difference. I have already created a new thread about how they could address the current issues without resorting to trinity.
And CoH was not trinity based. I think we are arguing over semantics now though as you seem to relate trinity with roles not with the tank/healer/dps. Roles are good, synergy is good, trinity and required roles are bad.
As for the average player? Not at all. The average player falls into one of two categories right now sadly.
1) Uses rainbow weapons and has terribad build
OR
2) Doesn't understand rainbow weapons have very little to do with a terribad build
I've never asked for the Trinity, I've consistently in this and in the other thread asked for a better environment for the currently designed roles to function.
As opposed to, what seems like 90% of players (exaggerating) simply wanting standard type Cruisers and Sci ships to just do more damage.
The only thing I've stated with regards to the Trinity is how the ship classes were effectively influenced by their design.
The Primary Role of Cruisers is Tanking, Healing.
The Primary Role of Sci Ships is Control, Debuffs, Healing.
The Primary Role of Escorts is DPS, Spike and potentially debuffing.
Unfortunately that's very close to the trinity, there are some in-betweens but not nearly enough in-betweens as CoH had.
What's more, only one of those roles is ever needed in PvE and adding the other roles doesn't actually add anything (again, unlike in CoH).
they have different roles, even if you want you cant use for oposite role with not even near same efficiency.
as if there is or there is not content to support those roles is another matter.
not realy need content to change, it should be enough to redo ships a bit so they be valuable in current content too, not just escorts as it is now.
for example .. return preview power to sci ships, just put a penalty against players so dont broke pvp balance. add some eng consoles that are cruser only that can boost power/weapon dmg.
and think we should be fine.
I think the problem is actually in the content design, the ships themselves are mostly designed well.
The problem is that Cruisers and Sci ships were built to do things that are almost never required in PvE.
That's a system wide problem with PvE.
A thousand times this. If content wasn't 100% a dps race, the player-driven focus on pure-dps wouldn't happen.