COMMUNITY

The problem can be summed up in three words, Player Versus Player. Those of you familiar with Massively Multiplayer PvP know that burst damage wins. Quite frankly fire mages and their derivatives are consistently a balancing headache for developers in player versus player. In PvE the trinity system works rather efficiently. The tank absorbs the damage and keeps the aggro the healer heals the tank and the mage rains fiery hell down on the monsters. The healer needs the aggro management of the tank and the dps of the mage the tank needs the healing of the healer and the dps of the mage and the mage needs the aggro management of the tank. Under the trinity system however PvP balance breaks down. This is because the balancing mechanism for mages in PvE is the fact that they need the tanks to hold the aggro in PvP their range and high damage gives them a huge advantage over melee classes. The mage may be a glass cannon but if you kill the warrior with a fireball before he reaches you the mage's range become 100% damage reduction. I can think of three mmo examples off the top of my head where this is true. World of Warcraft (fire mage), Warhammer Online(Bright Mage/Sorceress), and City of heroes(Blaster). Thus you have the problem of melee classes sucking in PvP, ranged dps dominating the battlegrounds, and healers caught in a limbo in which they are either rendered completely superfluous or essential for both sides to have large amounts of. The trinity system just doesn't work well for PvP. You will notice that the games with the best balance for PvP tend to avoid this system. Eve Online, Guild Wars etc... Of course those game's systems are slightly more then I want to put into one post but all the same they are there if you want to research them yourself. To summarize while the trinity system lends itself nicely to PvE in many ways,PvP, which greatly contributes to the longevity of an mmo, suffers.

DPS - high damage low surviveability
healers - high surviveability low damage
tanks - high surviveability low damage

when properly balanced, the damage out put of DPS classes is mitigated by healing and mitigation, and the low-damage of tank/heal classes is balanced against the low-mitigation of DPS. ALL Types are limited by their RESOURCES (so fights cannot last forever)

problems occur when players are given too many Tricks (DPS gets escape mechanisms, CC, etc). Expecialy when RESOURCES become UNLIMITED, this is when "burst rules" comes into play.

a good, well balanced PVP system is about manageing your resources. a perfectly balanced fight, where both players preform perfectly should degenerate into a special-less fist-fight, after both players have metered out the last of their available resources and hope that it bought them enough of an edge to win.

This is pretty much it.

PvP becomes imbalanced when we get cheap tricks in the form of CC in addition to the damage, healing, and mitigation mechanics that were already implemented, which causes balancing problems.

Here's the problem.. PVP is not fun if it is perfectly balanced. PVP always needs to be rock-paper-scissors.

Yes, it is annoying when you can never kill a class solo - but PVP in an MMO should not be about soloing. If you want solo PVP with skill go play an FPS.

100% truth right here. You have to create a max that gear can never compensate for. Once you allow gear to outstrip any negatives of the class you are breaking the system. SWG was designed around the idea that armor would never surpass 45% resist and they screwed up decimal somewhere and 80% (90% with slice) was possible. WoW just kept adding content with gear so good that players became maxed out in every way. You have to create base maximums that will never be hit and stick to it. This is the only way to maintain balance. Once you start screwing around with the negatives of the classes you screw balance.

Like we really needed a new thread for this...

0/10

First. Paragraphs. They are your friend. Use them.

Second, it works rather well in Warhammer imo. The "tanks" in PvP have abilities that can reduce others' damage taken. So if you have good tanks around the glass cannon class can't simply nuke down melee before they get in range. See the whole class system depends on other players (MMO right?). If you're a solo player I guess it makes sense that you won't want a trinity system.

and third, this:

i disagree. its more fun to beat an opponent who stands a fair chance, and who you out-played, than gank some one who lost purely based on their class/gear.

Concider, traditional Rock/paper/scissors

DPS > healer > tank > DPS
as soon as you spot your oponent you know if its a win or a loss, and either chase them or run... bleh.

or these matchups...

DPS > tank - IF the dps manages their resources, and attacks when opponents defences are down.

Tank > DPS - IF the tank manages their resources, uses defensive abilities at the right time to cunter big attacks

DPS > healer - if the dps out-lasts the healer, and fires off big attacks when the healer is low and they have a chance to kill.

Healer > DPS - if the healer conserves resources, heals only when necessary and does not allow their health to get into range of a one-attack-kill

same principal for healer/tank, etc. its all about knowing your class, knowing your opponent's class, and just flat playing better than them.

All I can say is that trinity = *YAWN*. I completely disagree with those of you that think it's a fun/good/intelligent game mechanic.

Have fun playing those non-trinity MMO games. Oh yeah, there aren't any.