class-mechanics
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The Daily Grind: Should the MMO holy trinity be a thing of the past?
Dungeons, lairs, and instances, oh my! No, Toto, you are definitely not in Kansas anymore. No matter what game you play, there is usually some sort of division of roles that a toon you roll takes on -- some characters are support, some are up-font and center, and others stick to the side and unload what their mama gave them. Undeniably, the holy trinity seems to be something of a standard in most MMOs -- you are going to have to make a choice at some point about how you actually play. But maybe some day you wouldn't have to choose a spec, roll a new toon, or make compromises in your class picks. Dreams of being a healer who can actually kick some serious winged-monkey butt could be a thing of the future. Or maybe it will never happen. That's why I pose the following to all of you: If the holy trinity became a thing of the past, how would you envision your favorite game changing? Would you rather see every class be able to use a mix of skills? Could it actually work, or would it just create games full of clone characters? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Dervishes get a major turnaround in Guild Wars
Introduced with the third campaign of Guild Wars, Dervishes have always been a unique class, swinging scythes in wide arcs and using a combination of enchantments and melee strikes to take out opponents. Of course, being a unique class also leads to a lot of unique issues, which the development team is hoping to address with the coming update. The preview promises that over 90% of the Dervish skills have been changed, with the overall goal of improving the class in a broad spectrum rather than just tweaking the numbers on a handful of skills. Among the more far-reaching changes are several Dervish skills using Adrenaline, the addition of new "flash enchantments" to allow Dervishes to enchant themselves while on the move, and a restructuring of the many "teardown" combos in place that capitalize on Dervish enchantments. Several of the new skills are previewed, as are examples of how players can use the changed mechanics to still retain the essential playstyle of a Dervish with much more flexibility than before. If you're a Dervish in Guild Wars, the changes should keep you spinning up in the best possible way. [Thanks for the tip, Teina!]
Official Final Fantasy XIV site updated
The official site for Final Fantasy XIV follows several Square-Enix site traditions, by being designed entirely in Flash and having an obnoxiously slow update schedule. Thankfully, an official update has just hit the site, both in the form of several new screenshots (including the lovely in-game shot seen above) and more solid ability information about several of the game's disciplines. Much of it mirrors what we'd seen in early leaks from Japanese magazines, but the abilities and spells of each class shed more light on how the game will play. Conjurers are apparently going to play similar to Scholars, with both traditional black and white magic spells in their arsenal, as well as unique tricks such as being able to cast while moving. Thaumaturges, meanwhile, inherit several Dark Knight draining/sacrificing abilities along with several status ailments. And those are just the two casting professions -- each of the five physical damage professions seem poised for a wide variety of ability combinations, along with a heavy emphasis on position. The beta information for Final Fantasy XIV still seems to be restricted, but the game is already looking intruiging for both fans of the series and general MMO players.
The Daily Grind: What's the most important part of the trinity?
While the structure of the jokingly-named "holy trinity" in MMOs -- tanks, healers, and damage dealers -- isn't universal, it's certainly common enough to be recognizable. Even in games without pre-defined classes, such as Champions Online, have a group structure oriented toward the three roles. But you can't have classes without a struggle between them, and there's always a discussion in relation to the trinity about which part is the most important. Tanks point to their relative scarcity and the pressure of their job, Healers point to their relative scarcity and the importance of their job, and DPS points to the fact that healers and tanks can't keep their stunts up forever if nobody is killing the target. So where do you fall in this debate? Which part of the trinity do you think is the most important to a group's success, and which one is the most superfluous? Do you think that (by astonishing coincidence) the role you play most frequently is the most important one, or do you think it's lower on the scale and you play it for other reasons?
Advance leaks from Famitsu and Dengeki shed more light on Final Fantasy XIV
The first round of testing is just around the corner, and for some people that means that Final Fantasy XIV is holding much more mental real estate than the just-released Final Fantasy XIII. All things considered, information is likely to start coming fast and furious as soon as the testing opens, but some advance copies of Famitsu and Dengeki Playstation have made their way into the hands of people who just can't wait another day. FFXIVCore has helpfully translated the information available, which already paints an interesting picture of how the game will play. Fighting is confirmed to be on the move, with a strong emphasis on positioning and MP conservation. We've also got some picture of how the classes will play, with Pugilists inheriting a workalike to Provoke and Gladiators inheriting Phalanx and Shield Bash, albeit with different characteristics. There's also talk about Miners and Blacksmiths working in parties, pointing out utility for gathering or crafting disciplines in groups. We've also got a little information on the Illusionist, meaning most likely that an official site update is on the way. With testing beginning soon, expect Final Fantasy XIV information to become more and more available -- but what we're hearing so far definitely sounds like a good ride.
Battle of the Immortals reveals classes
Perfect World Entertainment has spent a fair amount of time talking up their upcoming PvP-focused game, Battle of the Immortals. The game certainly looks gorgeous, but we've only heard bits and pieces about how it will actually play. The most recent update, however, certainly provides a fair bit more information on how the game, as it details the game's classes -- Berzerker, Heretic, Magus, Slayer, and Champion. Each class is given a brief writeup of their strengths, weaknesses, and preferred opponents. In no particular order, Slayers deal a mix of physical and magical damage at close range but have next to no defensive abilities. Heretics are a combination of priests with more sinister magics, dealing damage and healing as well as inviting a few obious comparisons. Magi (or maguses, if you prefer) are... well, okay, they're kind of obvious. Berzerkers have an errant "z" in their name and focus on dealing out physical damage at the cost of some defense, and Champions wield a weapon and shield to be all but indestructible. The classes seem set to provide a fair mix of the usual "holy trinity" mechanics and PvP skills, so take a look at the official preview to get a clearer picture of what you might want to play once the game goes live.
Attacking the holy trinity of MMOs
If you've played MMOs for any length of time, you've probably grown very familiar with the trinity. You can't help but be acquainted with it in any sort of group content, where in more games than not there's that split between the tank, the healer, and the DPS. Certainly there are subdivisions and extra roles, but for the most part those extra roles are slight twists on one of the existing roles. (Controllers in City of Heroes are DPS with a debuffing/controlling aspect and slightly less damage, for instance). Brian "Psychochild" Green has an article on Gamasutra examining the issues with the holy trinity in game design: what purposes it serves, what its drawbacks are, and how useful it might be to get rid of it entirely. Examining the roots of the trinity design in Dungeons & Dragons and common gameplay types it offered, Green goes on to take a look at how the structure has become codified, what other potential systems could be put in place, and if there's even an advantage to doing so. He discusses the issues of hybrid classes, group versus solo design, and proposes a potential alternative that remains rooted in the core elements of the design. Anyone with an interest in design should take a look at the full article, as it contains some interesting insights and analysis of one of the core underpinnings of our genre.
Breakfast Topic: What class mechanics have you had to learn to deal with?
In yesterday's breakfast topic we talked about what dungeons you've had to relearn -- how to deal with people in them and how to deal with all the pulls. Right in hand with that is the various ways people play their class. Prior to patch 3.3 WoW players could be rather insulated in their groups and techniques. For example, on my server the hunter would always misdirect to the tank. It was a standard thing, and if the hunter didn't do it, he'd be griped at right away by the entire group. Tanks on my server also generally marked the first kill target, regardless if the tank was a pally tank or a warrior (or death knight or druid or shield-wielding shaman). Enter patch 3.3 and cross-server grouping via the dungeon finder. Each person from each server now brings with them sometimes extremely divergent styles of play and ways they handle their class. I've found the number of hunters that don't have Feign Death on their toolbar to be astounding. On my server that kind of behavior would be shouted down in a big way. In cross-server groups, it almost seems acceptable. A successful group leader, especially a successful tank that's aware of everything going on, will have to strike a balance between getting members to fall in line (for lack of a better phrase), or just ignoring the problems and dealing with poor game play. It's this coping technique -- the ignoring part -- that we're here to talk about today. What are the class and game play mechanics you've learned to ignore and just deal with players not understanding?
Speculating on a new resource system for Hunters
As we said on the podcast this weekend, one of the most interesting things to come out of the Hunter Q&A last week was that vague about "long-term plans" to "[remove] the need for hunters to rely on a different resource system then mana." That one kind of came out of nowhere, and the answer was even more vague: basically, they promised to talk about it at BlizzCon. Of course, that's what our attracted our attention: is Blizzard planning on getting Hunters off of their mana system completely?That would be quite a change -- since the beginning of the game, Hunters have relied on mana as their "resource" -- Warriors have Rage and Rogues have Energy, but Hunters somehow got looped in with the other DPSers as mana users. That doesn't make much sense -- not only does it depend on Intelligence (a stat which Hunters don't really have a reason to go after anyway), but it's lead to the problem of keeping Hunters powered up. Hunters are almost continually out of mana, and Blizzard has made some wacky mechanic tweaks (with both AotV and Replenishment) to try and keep them up and running.
We won't see many more class changes in Wrath of the Lich King, says Ghostcrawler
So here's some news that'll probably make you feel good if you're okay with your class and just want to grab consistent set of talent specs and go at it, but may get you a little down if you still dislike where your class is. Ghostcrawler said yesterday that he believes there won't be many drastic class changes. In fact, he says, most of the 3.1 class changes were meant to compensate for or tinker with the changes made in 3.0 or to further tweak the classes that got the largest amount of overhaul.
