The Holy Trinity

• Syliara wrote on 2013-11-09 08:25
  I have been thinking lately, Mabinogi is a unique game in that it has almost no class restrictions. However, maybe this unique system has created the eventual downfall of the game itself? We all know the traditional Holy Trinity of most MMO's (DPS, Healer, Tank) and that alot of them survive for a very long time on that system. I personally think that, while Mabinogi's unique classless system grabs ahold of the players attention and creates such a free range for players to establish their character in, this classless system created a "limitless" power creep along with creating no real necessity for anything besides the DPS class. I understand that the uniqueness mabi holds with its no formal class system creates such a free atmosphere and allows players to explore all options instead of being forced to either remain with a specific set of skills or to reroll a character just to experience the other skills, but could this possibly have created a huge gap in content difficulty and player power? Honestly, most of us try to stick to no more then 2 main skillsets anyways, and build our stats accordingly, so is there any real difference in players' current attitude towards how their building their character and how a Holy Trinity mmo's stands on restrictions? Mabinogi imo is tailored towards the casual player at this point, where content only gets ridiculously easy after you start actually number crunching and stat building, however when you get to that point theres a noticeable gap in power between mobs and the player. With a basically restrictionless mmo also brings almost no ceiling for power, because without the Trinity's restrictions set in place (i.e. tanks not being able to dps, dps not being able to tank, and healers not being able to dps or tank) the mmo really doesnt have any cap to how strong one player can be. While I enjoy this feeling of freedom that mabi brings to me, I also miss the ability to be proficient in a specific role besides DPS and not even able to really contribute much to a team (if I ever even decide not to solo) besides BFO and killing things faster. While I hate to admit it, I would honestly rather have mabi be changed to at least some form of Holy Trinity at this point.
  
  tl;dr do you think that mabi should have some form of Holy Trinity system put in place? (DPS - Tank- Healer)
• Tropa wrote on 2013-11-09 08:33
  Agreed, but as long as we still have our skill(talent) freedom, that's fine by me.
  
  Current mabi:
  

  [Image: http://cdn2.mog.com/pictures/240707/dps_we_deliver.regular.jpg?1304933765]
• Gensokyou wrote on 2013-11-09 08:34
  It's not necessary. Compare Runescape, which [S]despite the combat system going to shit overnight[/S] remained largely popular despite the absence of a well-known healing spell (When used in a public area people often questioned what the hell it was).
  
  Rather, they should free up restrictions on things and let people solo more stuff and perhaps implement a few things for people that want to work in a team or something.
• Tropa wrote on 2013-11-09 08:37

  Quote from Gensokyou;1167778:

  Rather, they should free up restrictions on things and let people solo more stuff and perhaps implement a few things for people that want to work in a team or something.

  
  
  ...But this is an mmo, is it not? more content should be difficult enough to demand party play.
• Syliara wrote on 2013-11-09 08:38

  Quote from Gensokyou;1167778:

  It's not necessary. Compare Runescape, which [S]despite the combat system going to shit overnight[/S] remained largely popular despite the absence of a well-known healing spell (When used in a public area people often questioned what the hell it was).
  
  Rather, they should free up restrictions on things and let people solo more stuff and perhaps implement a few things for people that want to work in a team or something.

  
  
  So you want it to be even more solo oriented? Isnt that already a major problem with the game at this point in time?
• kaozking wrote on 2013-11-09 08:48
  The main thing that drove people into playing Mabi was the freedom to do anything you want without having to make a 2nd or 3rd character. The main reason why Mabinogi fails is because it's unbalanced. We still have a holy trinity in way. Some people mage, others use fighter, some bard, some range, then you got your lancers, and then you have the traditional people that want to tank ([S]Although that is seriously a joke to do in this game since this game is so unbalanced[/S]). Of course one person can do many of these things and excel in all of them. Mabi would be a better game built around teamwork using the Holy Trinity, but then again not as much people would be playing the game as we have now.
• Syliara wrote on 2013-11-09 08:59

  Quote from kaozking;1167784:

  The main thing that drove people into playing Mabi was the freedom to do anything you want without having to make a 2nd or 3rd character. The main reason why Mabinogi fails is because it's unbalanced. We still have a holy trinity in way. Some people mage, others use fighter, some bard, some range, then you got your lancers, and then you have the traditional people that want to tank ([S]Although that is seriously a joke to do in this game anyways since this game is so unbalanced[/S]). Of course one person can do many of these things and excel in all of them. Mabi would be a better game built around teamwork using the Holt Trinity, but then again not as much people would be playing the game as we have now.

  
  
  This is all true, but my point wasnt really enacting the straightforward Holy Trinity most mmo's have, but giving players more incentive to stay in a certain class. For instance, make a new layer on rebirth or char creation called "class" or something like that where theres 3 options Tank-Dps-Healer and if you rb into on of those you gain specific attributes that give you both the means and incentive to play as a specific class. Being in the tank class could allow for a higher amount of hp and def/prot as well as a self buff that allows for temporarily increased defense and prot and also give them a "taunt" skill (no not the giant one but one for all races and a better version) that allows them to actually grab and hold aggro. Being in the healer class allows for higher mp and int and a more potent heal, and gives you access to certain skills like a better aoe heal, party buffs, and debuffs for the enemies. Being in the DPS class allows for a boost in all stats (not as much as the specific ones for the other 2 classes) and a base max dmg increase and allows for self buffs that can drastically increase max dmg and attack speed for a small amount of time, while also opening up class specific aoes that have heavy cooldowns but allow for massive dps.
  
  Of course these ideas have flaws, they would basically have to nerf or redo all of the formulas so it wasnt imbalanced, and those skills that are class specific would be unable to be used if u werent in the class. It would probably require a universal nerf on dmg, along with a universal buff on mobs and content. But this is just fun things I would like to see implemented, and would fall under "my version" of the Holy Trinity for mabi.
• Gensokyou wrote on 2013-11-09 09:09

  Quote from Pureblooded;1167780:

  So you want it to be even more solo oriented? Isnt that already a major problem with the game at this point in time?

  
  
  I think forcing people to party is more of a problem. Except for the hardest possible content, being forced to party with people is kinda like being kicked in the gonads every time you want to do something.
  
  This does nothing to encourage more people to join except for realizing that they can't do their stupid roleplay mission by themselves and give up looking for people when the 10th person in a row turns them down because they're busy standing in dunbarton calling the person 2 feet away from them a dumbass.
  
  I really don't care if this is an unpopular opinion, being forced to party with people is just like adding "fake" difficulty to a game - it's stupid.
• Syliara wrote on 2013-11-09 09:14

  Quote from Gensokyou;1167791:

  I think forcing people to party is more of a problem. Except for the hardest possible content, being forced to party with people is kinda like being kicked in the gonads every time you want to do something.
  
  This does nothing to encourage more people to join except for realizing that they can't do their stupid roleplay mission by themselves and give up looking for people when the 10th person in a row turns them down because they're busy standing in dunbarton calling the person 2 feet away from them a dumbass.
  
  I really don't care if this is an unpopular opinion, being forced to party with people is just like adding "fake" difficulty to a game - it's stupid.

  
  
  Wouldn't the different difficulty selection be the fix for that? Allow you to be able to solo at lower difficulties for less rewards and lower chance of good drops, and higher difficulties require parties with a holy trinity setup to clear it and it allows for more rewards and a higher chance at good drops.
• kaozking wrote on 2013-11-09 09:15

  Quote from Pureblooded;1167788:

  This is all true, but my point wasnt really enacting the straightforward Holy Trinity most mmo's have, but giving players more incentive to stay in a certain class. For instance, make a new layer on rebirth or char creation called "class" or something like that where theres 3 options Tank-Dps-Healer and if you rb into on of those you gain specific attributes that give you both the means and incentive to play as a specific class. Being in the tank class could allow for a higher amount of hp and def/prot as well as a self buff that allows for temporarily increased defense and prot and also give them a "taunt" skill (no not the giant one but one for all races and a better version) that allows them to actually grab and hold aggro. Being in the healer class allows for higher mp and int and a more potent heal, and gives you access to certain skills like a better aoe heal, party buffs, and debuffs for the enemies. Being in the DPS class allows for a boost in all stats (not as much as the specific ones for the other 2 classes) and a base max dmg increase and allows for self buffs that can drastically increase max dmg and attack speed for a small amount of time, while also opening up class specific aoes that have heavy cooldowns but allow for massive dps.
  
  Of course these ideas have flaws, they would basically have to nerf or redo all of the formulas so it wasnt imbalanced, and those skills that are class specific would be unable to be used if u werent in the class. It would probably require a universal nerf on dmg, along with a universal buff on mobs and content. But this is just fun things I would like to see implemented, and would fall under "my version" of the Holy Trinity for mabi.

  
  
  That would be a good thing to implement (excluding all the flaws and dreadful maint time in order to implement something like that). People would actually start to want a certain class in their party. (LF>r1 synth for dorrens does not count)
• kaozking wrote on 2013-11-09 09:20

  Quote from Gensokyou;1167791:

  I think forcing people to party is more of a problem. Except for the hardest possible content, being forced to party with people is kinda like being kicked in the gonads every time you want to do something.
  
  This does nothing to encourage more people to join except for realizing that they can't do their stupid roleplay mission by themselves and give up looking for people when the 10th person in a row turns them down because they're busy standing in dunbarton calling the person 2 feet away from them a dumbass.
  
  I really don't care if this is an unpopular opinion, being forced to party with people is just like adding "fake" difficulty to a game - it's stupid.

  
  
  We already party up for tasks whether or not we have a Holy Trinity. Yes some of the things we party up for are soloable, but in any MMO, once you reach high enough you SHOULD be able to solo these things. Also roleplay missions are a whole different thing considering you are roleplaying.
• NomadTrooper wrote on 2013-11-09 09:49

  Quote from Gensokyou;1167778:

  It's not necessary. Compare Runescape, which [S]despite the combat system going to shit overnight[/S] remained largely popular despite the absence of a well-known healing spell (When used in a public area people often questioned what the hell it was).
  
  Rather, they should free up restrictions on things and let people solo more stuff and perhaps implement a few things for people that want to work in a team or something.

  
  Lies. I've played the healer roll in Bandos GWD.
• Gensokyou wrote on 2013-11-09 10:03

  Quote from Pureblooded;1167793:

  Wouldn't the different difficulty selection be the fix for that? Allow you to be able to solo at lower difficulties for less rewards and lower chance of good drops, and higher difficulties require parties with a holy trinity setup to clear it and it allows for more rewards and a higher chance at good drops.

  
  
  No, because that just shits on solo players twice instead of once.
  
  In the words of Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee, a game should be able to stand up singleplayer if it's a good game. It shouldn't REQUIRE you to have your 4 friends that can be on at exactly the same time as you to get a sane man's exp/reward rate.
  
  By very nature of it, solo will be slower then partying. 2 people attacking will be faster then one person attacking. Unless everything dies in one hit and is adverse to being attacked by more then one player and arbitrarily slows you down, the slowest you can get is the same as one person.
  
  That should be the penalty of not partying up. For example, if I choose not to party up for whatever reason, I should still have access to the exact same content, exact same rewards, except it's slower. And that's fine by me. For example, with the exception of the super mega ultra endgame content, you should be able to solo those missions and bosses or whatevers for money and if you find someone to duo it with, you get to kill twice as fast. Aint that lucky?
  
  Let me explain why i'm so against content requiring party play. Let's ignore that it's bad game design and that i'm in probably the worst location on the planet for gaming.
  
  I used to play Runescape, which used to average over 200,000 people at any given time. Finding a guild on there was bad enough. Most people would want to sit doing nothing, doing their own thing, or were simply too idiotic to party up with. You could barely find a guild that was actually decent, and if you did it was probably full of elitist pricks and snobs that would chastise you for that one mistake you made.
  
  Now, a skill came out in 2010 called Dungeoneering, which pretty much required you to party up with 5 people and do a dungeon designed for 5 people if you wanted to get anything approaching a decent exp rate. Soloing was not viable if you didn't want to spend like 10,000 hours vs 500 hours on that same skill.
  
  Trying to find a team comprised of half decent people was extremely hard for a game that averaged 200,000 people online. I couldn't even get people to sit in the start room and afk for the dungeon while I finished it myself, calling them over when there was that manditory room that required everyone in the dungeon to complete or something like that. It was faster for me to finish the dungeon by myself and tell everyone to stay AFK and they couldn't even do that, which slowed the floor down. But no, you couldn't do a floor designed for 5 people by yourself, you HAD to have 5 people in the party. It was beyond frustrating. And that's not because i'm saying that i'm a good player or anything, people would do stuff like carry around keys without letting anyone know they have the damn key ALL THE TIME. And you'd be stuck at a one-way door and you'd be busy combing the dungeon for that key that the one guy picked up then went afk because "he's helping".
  
  Of course, when you actually had a good team of people your exp improved exponentially and that was enough of a reward in itself. Still, not being able to solo when you couldn't find a team that was complete rubbish was beyond frustrating when that's all you had to do.
  
  Now, let's apply this over to Mabi (Again, still ignoring my location and game design). There's far less people playing and it's still really hard to find a guild that's not filled with elitists or people that sit around afking and epeening in dunby all day. Minimum people requirements can make some daily missions downright impossible because you have nobody to do them with. And then you want to penalize people even more for soloing?
  
  Now, let's factor in that it's pretty much impossible for me to find anyone to do anything (raids, missions, whatevers) with, without being available either in the middle of the day or some stupid time at night, both of which are impractical while not being a NEET (unless you can function on 4 hours of sleep consistently). Players that arn't from (Insert server location of generic game here) already get shafted enough because of distance lag and horrible time zone issues, let's shaft them once more by not letting them be able to level/get rewards like other players and lose even more of our player base.
  
  Oh, and as Yahtzee said, it's just simply bad game design.
  
  Now, i'm awaiting the people that are going to say that i'm both blamming party play (I'm not) and not wanting endgame content that requires more then one person (I am) because they can't be bothered to read.
  
  

  Quote from NomadTrooper;1167800:

  Lies. I've played the healer roll in Bandos GWD.

  
  
  Were you trioing with one person attacking with a dragon scimmy and the person praying melee a void pure with a defender because it gives negative defence bonuses to range while you used heal other?
  
  It's far from necessary. [S]Not sure if just saying that just to be contrary.[/S]
• Tropa wrote on 2013-11-09 10:12

  Quote from Gensokyou;1167804:

  Let's ignore that it's bad game design and that i'm in probably the worst location on the planet for gaming.

  
  
  May be true, but you have to keep bringing it up?
• Syliara wrote on 2013-11-09 10:25

  Quote from Gensokyou;1167804:

  No, because that just shits on solo players twice instead of once.
  
  In the words of Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee, a game should be able to stand up singleplayer if it's a good game. It shouldn't REQUIRE you to have your 4 friends that can be on at exactly the same time as you to get a sane man's exp/reward rate.
  
  By very nature of it, solo will be slower then partying. 2 people attacking will be faster then one person attacking. Unless everything dies in one hit and is adverse to being attacked by more then one player and arbitrarily slows you down, the slowest you can get is the same as one person.
  
  That should be the penalty of not partying up. For example, if I choose not to party up for whatever reason, I should still have access to the exact same content, exact same rewards, except it's slower. And that's fine by me. For example, with the exception of the super mega ultra endgame content, you should be able to solo those missions and bosses or whatevers for money and if you find someone to duo it with, you get to kill twice as fast. Aint that lucky?
  
  Let me explain why i'm so against content requiring party play. Let's ignore that it's bad game design and that i'm in probably the worst location on the planet for gaming.
  
  I used to play Runescape, which used to average over 200,000 people at any given time. Finding a guild on there was bad enough. Most people would want to sit doing nothing, doing their own thing, or were simply too idiotic to party up with. You could barely find a guild that was actually decent, and if you did it was probably full of elitist pricks and snobs that would chastise you for that one mistake you made.
  
  Now, a skill came out in 2010 called Dungeoneering, which pretty much required you to party up with 5 people and do a dungeon designed for 5 people if you wanted to get anything approaching a decent exp rate. Soloing was not viable if you didn't want to spend like 10,000 hours vs 500 hours on that same skill.
  
  Trying to find a team comprised of half decent people was extremely hard for a game that averaged 200,000 people online. I couldn't even get people to sit in the start room and afk for the dungeon while I finished it myself, calling them over when there was that manditory room that required everyone in the dungeon to complete or something like that. It was faster for me to finish the dungeon by myself and tell everyone to stay AFK and they couldn't even do that, which slowed the floor down. But no, you couldn't do a floor designed for 5 people by yourself, you HAD to have 5 people in the party. It was beyond frustrating. And that's not because i'm saying that i'm a good player or anything, people would do stuff like carry around keys without letting anyone know they have the damn key ALL THE TIME. And you'd be stuck at a one-way door and you'd be busy combing the dungeon for that key that the one guy picked up then went afk because "he's helping".
  
  Of course, when you actually had a good team of people your exp improved exponentially and that was enough of a reward in itself. Still, not being able to solo when you couldn't find a team that was complete rubbish was beyond frustrating when that's all you had to do.
  
  Now, let's apply this over to Mabi (Again, still ignoring my location and game design). There's far less people playing and it's still really hard to find a guild that's not filled with elitists or people that sit around afking and epeening in dunby all day. Minimum people requirements can make some daily missions downright impossible because you have nobody to do them with. And then you want to penalize people even more for soloing?
  
  Now, let's factor in that it's pretty much impossible for me to find anyone to do anything (raids, missions, whatevers) with, without being available either in the middle of the day or some stupid time at night, both of which are impractical while not being a NEET (unless you can function on 4 hours of sleep consistently). Players that arn't from (Insert server location of generic game here) already get shafted enough because of distance lag and horrible time zone issues, let's shaft them once more by not letting them be able to level/get rewards like other players and lose even more of our player base.
  
  Oh, and as Yahtzee said, it's just simply bad game design.
  
  Now, i'm awaiting the people that are going to say that i'm both blamming party play (I'm not) and not wanting endgame content that requires more then one person (I am) because they can't be bothered to read.
  
  
  
  Were you trioing with one person attacking with a dragon scimmy and the person praying melee a void pure with a defender because it gives negative defence bonuses to range while you used heal other?
  
  It's far from necessary. [S]Not sure if just saying that just to be contrary.[/S]

  
  
  First of all, it doesnt need to be friends it can be anyone i.e. a pug. You dont have to run with friends (even tho sometimes pugs are no better then soloing).
  
  Runescape is a totally different game with a totally different playerbase. Runescape is full of idiots and little kids last time I checked, not to mention alot of just in general bad people. Trying to compare almost the worst possible playerbase with a decent playerbase is not something you really can do.
  
  Theres plenty of decent guilds out there, you just have to look. And yes I do want to penalize for soloing, because its an MMO, not a single player game. Its set up and meant to be played with multiple people most of the time, and shouldnt be able to be soloed through 95% of the content with ease.
  
  Honestly, and I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but thats really your problem not the game's. It sucks that your timezone doesnt coincide with most of the population's but its not really a reason to want a game to center its play style around you. It's fine and all to be annoyed that you can't really do anything about it and have to live with it, but 90% of the playerbase live in North America and doesn't have that much trouble finding people online when they are. Lag is an issue that really should be fixed on nexon's side, and theres nothing that can be said about it however the lag u normally experience all goes back to its really not the game's problem as much as it is your location and that theres nothing you can really do about it. In the end that whole paragraph really doesnt apply to the majority of the server's and shouldn't really be a deciding factor in content implication. Again it sucks, but its not something that should be a limiting factor to content.