Here’s a fun thing for you: I swear that way, way back before the game launched, there were documents from the Guild Wars 2 design team that explained how the game was going to have a trinity that was different from the modern tank-DPS-healer trinity, but I have not been able to find it for years now. It definitely isn’t how the game has shaken out since then, of course; for the game’s raids there is a pretty standard trinity at work, for example, and outside of that role distribution is kind of wonky at the best of times. Which sort of tells you a lot about how trinity design works and how hard-wired it is for a lot of post-World of Warcraft era MMO design and concepts. (Yes, I realize that prior to WoW, the MMO trinity was tank-healer-CC, but that hasn’t been as common for two decades now.)
That’s not to say that you can’t do anything else with the basic ideas, obviously; I wouldn’t have set this column up last week if I didn’t have ideas this week. Because while I think all of the roles I cited have issues just being added onto the existing modern trinity of roles, that doesn’t mean you can’t make something entirely different. So let’s look at those different things for a bit.
Controller/Weakener/Exploiter
One of the common observations in MMORPGs in general is that DPS kind of outpaces a lot of other concerns. Better tank gear means more damage dealt and less time spent mitigating, and it means healers can spend more time dealing damage, making fights shorter, so on and so forth. So why not have a trinity of roles that’s very specifically tailored to that idea? One person’s role is to deliberately control the enemies and keep them in position, making them vulnerable to debuffs. The next person applies very specific debuffs to increase damage taken or other such effects. Then the last role uses those weaknesses to deal most of the damage.
In theory this allows you to still have a vaguely tank-like structure with one person locking down the field, and it keeps the onus for damage on the whole group (the person meant to exploit a weakness needs a weakness to exploit in the first place, after all). The down side is that the complete lack of any healing or support role doesn’t necessarily sit well with some players; there are people who do really enjoy healing/support as a role, and it is a legitimate playstyle that can have some interesting mechanics.
Also worth noting is that this requires a degree of field control that most modern MMOs aren’t really fond of. In games like Final Fantasy XIV, reacting to boss mechanics is a big part of the game; if the controller can stop them, the game becomes very different, and if she can’t, then she’s kind of just a tank by another name. That’s not to say you can’t make it work, just to note that all of these do have tradeoffs!
Duelist/Sweeper/Support
Action movies have two kinds of opponents, in broad strokes: the people who are fought against specifically and the people who are there mostly to show off how cool the protagonists are. This is something that Power Rangers has understood for ages. You have a whole bunch of kickable mooks that you beat up for a while that can pose a threat in sufficient numbers, and then you have the named enemy you have to focus on. And in a lot of fights in movies, you have both things happening at once, where some parts of the group are all about thrashing disposable soldiers to look cool while a couple people have actual one-on-one fights.
So why not model that in MMO combat? Duelists are there to engage directly in one-on-one fights with particularly dangerous foes. (This doesn’t have to be melee fighters, of course – snipers, for example, would fit the same basic role. Sniping is a one-target-at-a-time exercise.) Sweepers are there to clear away larger numbers of enemies before they swarm the group and get overwhelming. And support is there to both heal the group and provide duelists and sweepers the resources they need to keep using their abilities.
The potential downside here, of course, is that this could lead to a lot of fights being rather similar – oh, look, it’s another boss with an army of minions. So you’d need to figure out a way to keep the mechanics of each given encounter interesting without making either duelists or sweepers feel like the “important” half of the equation. (If the duel targets are always the real threat, sweepers are just more aggressive support; if being swarmed is always the real threat, duelists are just tanks by another name.) Then again, it’s not like a lot of MMO fights can’t already run the risk of feeling very similar!
Buffer/Healer/Weakener
So what if we have a trinity where everyone is kind of support? That’s something different. You can probably guess what the basic mechanics are in this particular layout, but just in case there’s any ambiguity, you have one guy whose job is buffing the group, one guy whose job is debuffing the enemy, and one guy whose job is healing the group through damage and possibly some other general support roles. You are all equally likely to be tanking and dealing damage.
Also I am pretty sure you can get this exact sort of group setup in City of Heroes if you and your friends are determined enough with weird builds. Whatever gets you through +4/x8 maps, I guess.
The benefit here is obvious: While damage is still important (as dealing damage remains the means you use to dispatch enemies) no one is really based around doing that primarily, because it’s more about how your group strengthens itself and weakens your targets. The person doing the most damage is not necessarily even dealing amazing damage from zero, but because they are being buffed and having debuffs applied to their targets. (Yes, I would absolutely make the most healy character the one who deals the most damage.)
A potential downside here would be keeping it too unconscious, though. Like, if all the buffs you apply trigger off damage abilities, then it doesn’t feel like you’re consciously timing buffs; it feels like you’re just doing the same stuff you would do solo and other people happen to be there. At the same time, if you make the buffs and debuffs and such too off-spec instead of triggering off your “main” abilities, then people are going to seek the equilibrium that gets them through with minimal engagement. It will be a conscious and constant balancing act.
Is any of these inherently better? That strikes me as the wrong question to ask. It’s worth experimenting with the standard formulae once you have a standard formula, because as soon as the formula starts feeling automatic… well, it can blind you to possibilities. You can always re-tune things and try again, and maybe you try this stuff in prototypes and it doesn’t work. But the experimentation is worth it because you can stumble on to something new along the way.
Designing an MMO is hard. But writing about some top level ideas for designing one? That’s… also remarkably hard. But sometimes it’s fun to do just the same. Join Eliot Lefebvre in Design Mockumentas he brainstorms elevator pitches for MMO sequels, spinoffs, and the like for games that haven’t yet happened and most likely never will!
