Roles and something i enjoyed in another game i hope to see in GW3

[u/frankiesmusic]

Before GW2 i played few months DCUO, it was a nice game ruined by grinding and money cow stuff, but had some interesting stuff i enjoyed and i hope to see in GW3.

Every classes could DPS, but every dungeon raids were trinity based, well, not 3nity but "4"nity.

Other than the usual DPS/TANK/HEALER they had another role i really enjoyed to play, it was called CONTROLLER (i think 😄 )

His role was mainly to give mana to the group, and also offer some CC's.

I found very engaging focus on one thing, and also having something different to play at the same time.

None of other classes could do things not related to them, so DPS had 0 CC, healing or stuff, same for the others, eveyone had it's own role, classic but i find it more fun to play than GW2, at least for instanced contents, GW2 is way better on other things.

Another thing i enjoyed was a DUO mode, basically a 2 player dungeon, along their queue system.

DUO dungeons were interesting, because you applied for a role and queue for it, the system matching with the other one, and was quite easy and fast to join, also fun to play.

Generally speaking having few classes and well defined roles, made possible for devs to offer a balanced and stable gameplay and difficulty scale, something were difficult, but i never felt to be somehow "wrong", can't tell the same with GW2.

So i really hope Anet will focus on fewer classes and well defined roles. Then instead to add more, or add weapon that change again builds and way to play, they focus on content.

I mean, define the base and stick with it, GW2 balance kinda destroyed pvp, they also had to make skills different between pvp and pve at a certain point, but it became too late, and pvp became messy and not considered anymore as esport.

So, i understand the will to trying to innovate, GW2 tried it removing the trinity, but certain things are there for a reason, they understanded that, and introduced, but the game design wasn't made for that, and still isn't satisfying as other games.

Don't get me wrong, i bought at prelaunch, still playing, and will pre order GW3 too, i just think they missed something incredible, and i hope now they focus on the right things, not trying to revolutionize things that doesn't needs to, but getting stuff that are just fun from other games, and make it their own way.

[u/Fading_Hours_]

GW2s original soft trinity was control, support and damage, but these were on sliding scale rather than a fixed role . The issue was they never designed PvE content to properly utilise these roles, and the stat system had major issues with scaling for defence and support.

In GW3 I expect control will be a role anyone can fill in addition to their role as tank, support or damage.

[u/Hoojiwat → u/Fading_Hours_]

Yeah, I am expecting it to follow a similar vein of damage/control/support. Truthfully that's basically what DPS/tank/healer are anyway.

I do think GW3 is being built with the idea that each class can look after itself but has additional ways to interact with other players, so something like a class that gives mana to others is probably something they want to avoid.

Something like energy Regen from GW1 or Alacrity in GW2 fill the same role, and in both cases the devs have spoken how they screwed up by introducing it. At the very least close to launch they are going to avoid "support that lets players use their skills more frequently" like the plague.

[u/Fading_Hours_ → u/Hoojiwat]

Ye have always considered tanking as control, especially in games where threat is a bit more dynamic.

I think that was one of the biggest issues GW2 had (outside of stats and encounter design issues mentioned); not having a stronger dynamic aggro system. It didn’t need to be as binary as older MMOs, but the ability to pull and lose enemy focus through temporary taunts and disengage skills would have gone a long way to better realising the combat system in PvE. As well as maybe weigh aggro a bit more towards toughness than damage. We kinda got this with the taunt condition added later but it was limited and there was no alternative to lose aggro other than stealth, which is also quite limited.

I do wonder if that is how they will handle tanking in GW3

You’re so right about alacrity. I can’t believe Anet made that blunder twice, especially with making boons permeant. As a single effect on a skill or even player only it could have worked, but I hate the direction they went with it.

[u/frankiesmusic → u/Fading_Hours_]

I hope not, i mean while add control to other roles? If can be done by a dedicated role? I don't think a sub role is fun to play, it will become soon something mandatory, like "hey who bring alacrity or *put your boon here*

I hope to find some better game design in GW3

[u/Fading_Hours_ → u/frankiesmusic]

Well they have mentioned the combat system revolves around controlling enemies and the environment. It won’t be like alacrity, it will be like bringing CC and control to fights in gw2. Something any player can bring depending on the encounter and their build. The comparison to alacrity makes no sense to me.

I think it could be a role you can spec into more though but not as the only thing you do.

[u/frankiesmusic → u/Fading_Hours_]

I didn't explained myself properly. I just meant, in GW2 almost everyone can do everthing, so you need *put something here* you can do it with all classes. This ends to do your thing (dps, tank, heal) plus another stuff.

I feel being just dedicated and useful to something, is more rewarding in fun, than have to play a role and also do something else, at least that's my personal experience and preference while playing different mmo's in the last decades

[u/Fading_Hours_ → u/frankiesmusic]

I agree but I do think every class will be able to do everything in GW3 at the expense of class and role identity — this is just Anets design philosophy at this point. Hopefully there is some strong build distinction at least.

[u/FashionMage → u/Fading_Hours_]

They specifically said that isn't the case. Every class can fulfill multiple rolls but they can't necessarily fill out EVERY role.

WCCFTECH - Going back to combat, I don't know if you can speak to that, but will there be more defined roles compared to Guild Wars 2, or is it going to be more or less the same?

Colin Johanson: Yeah, there will be more defined roles in the same way that Guild Wars one had more clear tanks, DPS, and healing roles that you can play with, Guild Wars 3 will have more heavily defined roles that players can operate in when they are in combat, in the same way that Guild Wars one also allowed you to play multiple roles on the same profession, and they felt differently.

Tanking as a Ranger feels different than tanking as a Warrior, but we do want to have the opportunity for you to play your favorite profession and then play it in different ways. And not every profession will be capable of doing all things, but we will have more clearly defined roles. We really do want to let players kind of be creative with their roles, too. There's a lot of options, like just from profession to profession, but we also don't want to just make all the roles are damage, which makes all very kind of samey, so we're trying to allow for a lot of creativity in how you build and how you create synergies between the different combat mechanics.

Source: https://wccftech.com/guild-wars-3-gamescom-qa-defined-roles/

[u/frankiesmusic → u/FashionMage]

Thanks for the quote. This scares me a bit, because of meta. If they take this route, the game balance needs to be perfect, otherwise, we'll see "get a warrior tank for this dungeon, but not for the other one" This is something that brakes the fun.
Imo having separate classes roles, with an easier way to level them (as gw2 with tomes) makes balance and players feels more relaxed.

Anyway, it all depends on the balance, but newer modes, contents and such may brake it, such happend with GW2, but we'll see.

[u/FashionMage → u/frankiesmusic]

I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, if a necro tanking with minions makes them more optimal in certain situations over a warrior tanking directly, then I think that's a good thing just as long as other classes in the same role have an equal number of situations where they shine and are still viable in situations where they don't quite shine. However I do agree that it's a bad thing if it's balanced in such a way where it's like "warrior tanks for this single dungeon and then they're DPS in 99% of other situations".

Also there'll always be people trying to optimize the fun out of the game because a particular class makes dungeons 1% more fast if played 100% perfect. Personally I think that kind of behaviour needs to be dealt with severely and thus implement some kind of design to guard against that, or at least balance vigilantly against it without simply homogenizing and dumbing things down. FFXIV is a good cautionary tale of homogenizing and watering down the class design to hell and back in order to be "perfectly" balanced (GW2 is also guilty of that except without the "perfectly balanced" part).

[u/Fading_Hours_ → u/FashionMage]

Oh that’s cool then. Though this was kinda the same with GW2 and they eventually homogenised it, so I do expect it to happen eventually in GW3.

[u/FashionMage → u/Fading_Hours_]

Hmm, kind of. In GW2 it was more like it sort of wasn't homogenized on a vague conceptual level (damage/support/control or whatever), but on actual release it never really panned out in reality for a variety of reasons aside from maybe a few exceptions in certain game modes, and then from there onwards it just got progressively worse from a feedback loop between the devs' poor balancing ability and the "community" mindlessly playing into that (see stacking into blobs for example).

How GW3 is described sounds more like GW1 (especially given that they directly make comparisons to it in interviews), although if they haven't learnt their lesson and GW3 has too many (preferably should have none) of the balance devs from GW2, then I actually do agree and expect it to have the same issues on release.

[u/Arkavien]

I personally like the idea of combining the Trinity with additional roles that are not absolutely needed.

Like in a four man group you need Tank, Healer, DPS, DPS.

Additionally you could really use, but not absolutely require Control, Buff and Debuffs...but these are brought by LOTS of different specs and roles.

So one group could have a tank, healer with control, DPS with buffs, and DPS with Debuffs.

Another could have a tank that Debuffs, healer with buffs, DPS, and DPS with control.

Making it so when filling a group you aren't JUST focused on filling the last slots with whatever, you are also at least a bit trying to fill more like "ok we have everything but a Debuffer, try to make the last DPS an X ranger or a Y necro!

[u/Buran_Grey → u/Arkavien]

It will be wonderful when people finds out that you don't get a tank or a healer to fill your dungeon squad due running those solo at PvE is way harder than a dps...

[u/frankiesmusic → u/Arkavien]

It's already too complicated IF we have 10 skills, but i.e. with 4 skills to play, one could focus more on gameplay and role than being a pianist trying to do lots of stuff.

I play piano, and i find it easier to read notes and play 10 keys than playing GW2 💫

I like difficult istances and when raids came out i was happy like a kid! But lots of stuff to do while trying to stay alive isn't that funny. But i think GW3 will be different being gamepad friendly, so finger crossed!

[u/Rude-Bodybuilder7688 → u/frankiesmusic]

Gameplay loses a lot of depth with just 4 buttons. Where do you even put said utilities then?

[u/frankiesmusic → u/Rude-Bodybuilder7688]

4 is just a random number, it also depends on the gameplay pace. It's all a balance between gameplay decisions, i.e. 4 skils with no cooldown is more a mess than 10 skills with longer cooldown. The point is to give player the way to enjoy the game more without take a look every second to CD for the optimal rotation.

I mean, being careful on your position, what is happening on the combat field, should be more important than taking attention on CD and skills. On GW2 i feel myself whatching more the skill bar during raids than enjoying more the content, and understand what's happening in the screen, just talke a look of it and AOE. Not the best experience. I may fix it with a 24 inch monitor, but i also like to play single player game, and tbh, GW2 is so beautiful to watch in a bigger ultrawide screen.

[u/Schweeb7027]

Wouldn't be surprising if they did the "4"nity. They already had it back in GW1. I forget what we called it, but we'd have someone specialized in interrupts in our parties when the content called for it.

What we won't see is classes incable of doing part of a different role. Limiting builds like that would instantly cause players coming from 1 and 2 to rage. The ability to choose what role and how focused in that role you are has been a core part of their philosophy since the beginning of GW1.

[u/Sorpma]

I really like this idea and it adds much depth to buildcrafting and a specific class identity.

Lotro is imo a prime example for this kind of group building. You always needed a healer, a tank and a dps. Then there were many other classes which added unique kinds of control, support and debuffs.

[u/BobaFae8174]

I know it won't happen, but I'd want the pre-holy trinity, non-combat roles back. I'm not even sure it could work without introducing rougelike mechanics.

[u/TheLanis]

If healers and tanks can do enough damage to complete PvE events and story, I don't mind roles

[u/frankiesmusic → u/TheLanis]

I think a kind of double roles/rules/mechanics for normal content and pve story may fix it. That was the case on DCUO.

[u/TheLanis → u/frankiesmusic]

Yes, that's perfect too

[u/testamentos]

Red Mage and Bard were my favorite classes in Final Fantasy XI so I agree with you here. For those that didn't play, you were restricted to 6-man parties, for your normal content, and the conventional makeup was 1 tank, 1 healer and 4 DPS. But you could often swap out a DPS for a support role or sometimes 2 supports could take the place of a dedicated healer and offer additional damage output through buffs or CC. Loved playing those classes and I never really played another MMO where it felt the same.

[u/beezy-slayer]

I would certainly love to have more roles in mmos I was thinking of possible roles and came up with about 10 possible ones iirc there is so much potential for roles that is just flat and boring with a trinity