archetype trinity and aoc classes | main tank and dedicated healing

Only having one class be a viable main tank and another for primary healing would seem likely to cause considerable contention for those two classes. something that happens in many other games.

has there been any discussion from devs on this?

possible solution would be for larger group raid content to be best to have tank class in main tank role and cleric for main support however all smaller group content is viable for more hybrid classes to function in those roles.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

delghinn

WMC51 wrote: »

Don't know what people are talking Bout. Wife and I always play tank healer combo and never have trouble finding grouos. Lol

People just don't like that everyone wants to DPS so its harder for them to find groups. Well they get to kill more in PVP and geinf exp easier killing faster. That's the trade off.

This game is obviously catering to the aging MMO crowd that doesn't want the game handed to them on a platter.

We.know how grouping works and how the trinity system works and we like it. Let us have our nostalgia. There's enough games for people who want their character to do all roles and have their quest node trails.
Just be happy you don't have to actually /chat to NPCs and figure out the key yours to get the correct reply. 8 tank and 8 healer combos is more than enough.

that's 8 out of 64. that's the same ratio as 1 out of 8. We can just simply count the base classes. So that's a total of 1 tank and 1 healer out of 8.

also that's quite a strawman conflating ease of other content with efforts to alleviate the excessive to extreme wait times to participate in pve content for most all the classes but two that have proven time and time again to be far less popular. However no matter how less popular they together provide a whooping 2/3rd the trinity. It is obviously a game breaking experience for most everyone else. And that's not even going into how typically classes that fit into the dps trinity role are always interchangeable while again the other two roles must be met by either very few possible classes or in the case of this title only one single base class for each trinity role.

and that's not to dismiss your grievances. tank and cleric base classes should have more varied and enjoyable experiences in pvp content and while general leveling. though at that point we're at best discussing abandoning the miserable trinity grouping mechanics or at least freeing up any base class to augment into any trinity role.

the 8/64 'classes' are all kinds of a mess

SoDakDrifter

If they make other classes able to tank even fewer people will take the tank primary archetype. A lot of games make actual tanks unnecessary or less viable. I think you will actually see more tanks in AoC than what we are used to. Same with Cleric. Plus we don’t know for certain smaller or less intense group content won’t be possible without a tank or cleric. Once they get into Alpha 2 and classes become available they will hash things out. If they think there will be an issue, they will make changes. I think their current plan will work out though.

Beekeeper

delghinn wrote: »

And for the ones that can perform more than one of the trinity they need to be just as viable in both or all three roles than classes that only perform one.

That makes no sense. If one class should be able to perform all tasks just as good as a specialist, why even bother with specialists? Not very special, is it.

My assumption is that tanks will not be as strctly necessary as in other games. With 3 fighters in the frontline, they may be able to keep the backline safe anyway, it just wouldn't be as good as having actual tanks.
Who knows. It's all speculation.

Niraada

Beekeeper wrote: »

That makes no sense. If one class should be able to perform all tasks just as good as a specialist, why even bother with specialists? Not very special, is it.

Agreed. A generalist's strength should be flexibility and adaptability, rather than potency. Thus, if a Summoner can perform multiple roles 'adequately' (or even sub-optimally), that's already a benefit in terms of group dynamics.

If you're doing a raid that has certain fights that are especially demanding in terms of collecting and controlling adds, a Summoner should be able to slot in there. If it's then followed by a fight that puts a massive burden on your healing team, the Summoner (presumably) should be able to slot in there to lighten the load too, even if they aren't as good as a true healer. Why? Because they're there, and they can do both.

There is a reason that we have the phrase "Jack of all trades; master of none". Not being able to compete directly with a specialist in their area of specialisation doesn't limit the value a Jack can bring, because we've got no fast travel (outside of families), and that means swapping in alts to a raid is going to cost time; time in which another raid could show up to contest you.

I would love to see Summoners in a place where they can perform the role of a tank or support, but not at the same capacities as true tanks or supports. That would just lead to obviating the need for Tanks, Clerics and Bards.

Balance does not mean "all things must be equal in all aspects". Balance is about give and take. Giving up something to get something else. Ashes isn't balanced around a 1v1 scenario. It's balanced around 8 person groups, meaning that the development goals are for all archetypes to have their own niche to fill in a party, in a way that makes them competitive with other options, even if they're not mathematically equal.

Making everything perform equally in all roles would lead to the same cancerous homogeneity that's infected games like WoW, where things like 'Class Identity' are little more than flavour text at this point.

lunarsky

I like the system as is. With 1 tanking class, 1 healing class, 2 support classes, and 4 pure DPS. It works just fine. Will tanks and healers be in higher demand, absolutely. If you want to join that gravy train roll a healer or tank. It's rather fun not having to wait for groups for 30 minutes or an hour. It was one of the main reasons I stopped maining DPS and switched to a healer. Now I just flat out enjoy healing more.

If you make everyone a jack of all trades I can heal/tank on my own then you've ruined the class balance of the game and defeated the whole design intent. Steven wants to force you to work with other people and build relationships and not be able to just faceroll through things. If every class can main tank with a /tank sub then what is the point of a tank primary? Fighter/tank will do more DPS and still tank so the meta would shift to that and Tank/X would be useless. Same with Cleric/X. That would also lead to other secondary classes being underutilized in favor of /tank or /cleric so a significant portion of the customization and variety of the class system is lost there as well.

This seems like an awful lot of trouble just to cater to DPS not wanting to have trouble finding a group. An easier solution may be befriending a healer or tank, joining a guild, playing with RL friends that play those roles, or doing something else while you wait like crafting so your time doesn't feel like it has been wasted OR roll a tank or healer yourself.

It's far too early to see how the community distribution of classes will shake out. We haven't even really seen what the skills and augments will be. Yes, I agree MMOs generally have more DPS than tanks or healers but they need more DPS than tanks or healers as well. The survey that was floating around these forums last I checked was actually pretty even with all classes within 2-4% of each other. Cleric was actually the second place most popular choice if I recall behind summoner. In my guild Cleric is the second most popular choice, who knows how things will play out. Your idea however seems like a heavy-handed solution to a simple problem. If there aren't enough tanks or healers people will reroll to those classes in order to meet the demand is my hunch. Perhaps the variety that Tank/X offers in terms of gameplay will lead them towards trying a new role that plays in a manner that they find fun.

Atama

I look at things differently. As someone planning to play a tank, what I see is that if a party is 8 players and the game is designed to let 1 tank support an entire party, I might have more trouble finding a group than a DPS or support class. That’s because in any given party there is only 1 slot for a tank but 6 for DPS/support. If I’m a rogue and there is already a rogue in the party, I’m good, DPS is DPS. But if there’s already a tank I’m irrelevant.

Compare that to a game where you have a party of 4 or 5, the disparity in opportunities is not as great.

It’s possible that a tank or cleric might have enough DPS output to not be too much of a redundancy if the group already has one, but we’ll see. Maybe it depends on the second class.

lunarsky

Atama wrote: »

I look at things differently. As someone planning to play a tank, what I see is that if a party is 8 players and the game is designed to let 1 tank support an entire party, I might have more trouble finding a group than a DPS or support class. That’s because in any given party there is only 1 slot for a tank but 6 for DPS/support. If I’m a rogue and there is already a rogue in the party, I’m good, DPS is DPS. But if there’s already a tank I’m irrelevant.

Compare that to a game where you have a party of 4 or 5, the disparity in opportunities is not as great.

It’s possible that a tank or cleric might have enough DPS output to not be too much of a redundancy if the group already has one, but we’ll see. Maybe it depends on the second class.

That's a fair point. I do think if you attempted to start your own party you'd find people pretty quickly as a tank though as many people don't want to join a party without a healer or tank already in it because they may have to wait around for a while doing nothing but if the party already has those pillars in it then it's a snap to find DPS.

The only downside to doubling up on classes in group would be the lose the utility skill each class has so which no mages because you have 2 summoners you could lose the detect magic (or whatever their skill is supposed to be) and miss out on some hidden loot or something but it shouldn't be too much of a hindrance probably. I think cleric and tank DPS will be respectable but not efficient in group content probably. That's pure speculation on my part though. I think Cleric/Fighter may be great for solo grinding and questing and a solid healer in group content but as a DPS lackluster when there will probably not be a shortage of DPS or groups will prefer (but not demand) a true dps class in their place.

Taraniss

I also think once a game launches things that even were not picked up in the alphas and betas come to light. Much of this discussion will revolve around the individual player as well. Player X might be able to tank or heal as an archetype while player Z can't. I think it comes down to who does it "better or easier". Just because a rogue/tank isn't meant to be able to doesn't mean in the proper hands it can't. It should be tougher to do though with less room for error where someone who is tank/tank should essentially have an easier time. So if I am a group leader I would favor getting that tank/tank. I don't think it has to be exclusive. I think it should be highly favored though.

Taraniss

Atama wrote: »

I look at things differently. As someone planning to play a tank, what I see is that if a party is 8 players and the game is designed to let 1 tank support an entire party, I might have more trouble finding a group than a DPS or support class. That’s because in any given party there is only 1 slot for a tank but 6 for DPS/support. If I’m a rogue and there is already a rogue in the party, I’m good, DPS is DPS. But if there’s already a tank I’m irrelevant.

Compare that to a game where you have a party of 4 or 5, the disparity in opportunities is not as great.

It’s possible that a tank or cleric might have enough DPS output to not be too much of a redundancy if the group already has one, but we’ll see. Maybe it depends on the second class.

I see your point and it makes complete sense. With that said if there is 1 tank for every 9 DPS in the game then essentially you should be better off. If I walk into a tavern and there are 30 heroes in there and 3 of them are tanks and 3 of them are healers that is a 1 to 8 ratio for example. I think that is the more likely scenario. When I have played a tank or healer in the past I tend to find more people want me on their "friends" list and I found it easier to find a static group to play with.

Sange

Just got into AOC recently with all of the hype YouTube interviews have been generating. Really, really excited and I always try to main tank for my guild. The more I look at this game, the more it grows on me.

The good
Clearly defined tanking/healing roles will make it so there is no question. If you want to tank, you choose tank. Then your secondary archetype determines how you tank. As a tank main, this sounds awesome to me. I also love the idea that everything is balanced around group dynamics.

The concerns
I have a few concerns in general. I'll try to be really clear and hope some of these are already being thought of by the developers:

Tank variety -- given that it's on record saying Primary Archetype will determine abilities, how much will morphs vary the class? Will Tank/Rogue be different enough from Tank/Fighter? I personally really like it when games have a variety of tanks that can help solve problems. I know the devs are on record that evasion tanks will be a think. I would love to know more details on how this could work, and what other variety will be coming.
Tank duties in raid environments -- given that anything can go X/Tank, how will that play out in raids? Will it only serve to mitigate personal damage? Will it add control elements? Will they be able to serve as tanks for adds? There are a lot of ways this could play out and I'm personally very interested to see what Intrepid decides to do.
Tanks as solo players -- In a lot of games, it can really suck to play a tank. In a world where you output low damage, solo questing and generally existing in the world can prove to be a tax. It's a big reason so few people roll tanks to begin with. I do not like the idea of homogenizing thinks to make anything a tank or vice versa, but will Secondary Archetypes help solve this? e.g. if I go Knight (Tank/Fighter), will I be doing significantly more damage?

Classes
Those are just some of my thoughts around it. I think it's extremely unhelpful to look at "only 1/8 classes can be tanks" because it's just a lot more nuanced than that given that players are not equally likely to roll every one of those 8 classes. Tanks are in demand because it's a responsibility in traditional MMOs, thus people don't roll them. No matter how many of the classes "can" tank, it doesn't solve that.

I really like the conversation about Summoners. Having "generalists" in the game is important and I think having classes that can makeshift-tank in smaller encounters (e.g. clearing a quest in the open world) is super important. But I think it's less about "who can tank?" and a more general conversation regarding the trinity and how primary vs secondary archetypes affect it. Intrepid is on record of saying secondary archetypes will help blur the line. But how much? It's an important and philosophical decision that I don't think we're going to fully understand for quite awhile.

TL;DR
Avid tank player. Would really like to know more about Intrepid's long-term vision on classes and how they come together with respect to the trinity. As someone who has MMO-hopped for the better part of two decades now, I'm super excited for this. I would love to be in a world where I can roll Fighter and play as a PvP/Generalist (e.g. go Fighter/Tank for small dungeon groups, but never main tank for raids), or go Tank/Fighter and be able to do decent damage out in the world. But it's more important for me that Intrepid has a vision for it and knowing what to expect going forward.

Daedrik45

Even if they made it possible to tank or main heal with more than 1 archetype.... only a small % would still play those Roles. Wow proves this with there class system. I’m going to play a Paladin tank. Like I have said before if you plan to play dps I suggest you start making some friends in these forums who are going to play tank or heals.

Jexz

If tank and cleric happen to be the best 1v1 classes due to sustain. All the arguments of there won't be enough tanks and clerics will go out the door. Even if this game is group minded or balanced around groups. What ever class is meta 1v1 will be in grater numbers.

The point here is let's wait and find out before we make tanks and clerics obsolete by making tank/cleric or cleric/tank able to tank and heal for the group.

Or make the least desired classes even less desirable to play.

Damokles

I am telling you once, and I will be telling you guys a hundred times.

Fighter is still not certain to be a pure dps class.
I could bet that it is some kind of aggressive tank class that relies on parrying incomming attacks.

Tank = defensive damage mitigation
Fighter = aggressive damage mitigation

They could neatly divide the classes into pairs of two:
Tanks - Tank and Fighter
Physical DPS - Rogue and Ranger
Magical DPS - Summoner and Mage
Support - Bard and Cleric

We simply dont know more about Fighter, Rogue, Summoner and Bards. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sange

Damokles wrote: »

I am telling you once, and I will be telling you guys a hundred times. Fighter is still not certain to be a pure dps class. I could bet that it is some kind of aggressive tank class that relies on parrying incomming attacks.

Not disagreeing with this at all. I'm hopeful that more than just "Tank" will be able to tank. That said, it's hard to speculate or unpack without more from the devs. My point is basically outlining that with Primary Archetype being immutable, this makes it a very tough choice if you're a tank main who also likes PvPing. I'd much rather play an "aggressive style Fighter tank" if it means I take slightly more damage but hold better threat, for example.

I'm really interested to hear what IS will have to say on the matter as time goes on.

Bolorny

delghinn wrote: »

Only having one class be a viable main tank and another for primary healing would seem likely to cause considerable contention for those two classes. something that happens in many other games.

If you have a look at the classes repartition, out of 8 classes we got :
1 Tank (Tank)
2 Healers (Cleric) Secondary Healer (Bard)
5 DPS (Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Mage, Summoner)

12.5% Tank
25% Healers
62.5% DPS

It looks very close to what we see in mmos in terms of player population.
I don't think there is going to be a shortage of Tanks or Healers.

Imo, the real concern will be the repartition of DPS classes, especially between Fighter and Rogue (both meleers) and between Mage and Summoner (both casters).

Child Item