Fixing MMOs?

The holy trinity wasn't always what it is today. WoW ushered in a decade-long era of tank-heal-damage knock-off games, so we all apparently forgot the origin of the cooperative multiplayer formula.

It was tank-heal-CONTROL. Enchanters were the purist's control class in EQ, and their responsibility was to keep large encounters at a manageable level, because the hordes of enemies we plow through in today's mmos were nearly impossible to mitigate back then. Against boss encounters, a single mob lasted long enough to justify the use of a wide range of status effects without which the fight was nigh impossible, in addition to managing the inevitable adds.

EQ is my only frame of reference, but I understand this was the case in DAoC and to a lesser extent AC as well.

The holy trinity existed to give each player a responsibility and a unique application for their character's tools that supported what other characters were doing. It was about cooperation. Elevating the universal act of dealing damage (universal in rpgs with health bars anyway) to one-third of all player responsibilities is why it's so weird these days.

Beyond that, there is always the option to shatter the trinity completely. FFXI successfully generated strong communities almost solely because there were so many responsibilities to group combat (combating the horrendous interface, for one!). Practically every job WAS its own corner of the trinity. Rangers pulled, Thieves managed aggro, Ninjas traded off tanking hits with their shadows while Paladins healed and cleansed themselves, etc. It is a curious point of comparison to note that every responsibility just mentioned is handled entirely by a single role in FFXIV... The tank.

Which would you prefer, a return to the old trinity, or a multitude of diverse and specific jobs?

>Neither because MMOs are dead and shouldn't you be at work right now?

I would prefer people making sandbox mmos instead of theme park mmos

I like having a trinity at the core, supported by different classes.

Back in 2007's LOTRO you could fill a 24 person raid with only Burglars or Captains (support classes) and nuke a raid boss because of the buff/debuff stacking.

FFXI and EQ were kings.
Everything else is shallow and generic.
It's starting to invade single player RPGs also, and that shit is annoying.

>30 different classes
>primary class is selected at character creation and is permanent for that character
>secondary classes are earned via specific quests, every class can be unlocked as secondary
>no leveling system
>abilities and passives are unlocked via spending skill points in talent trees
>skill points are obtained by using power crystals (lack of a better term)
>power crystals are obtained from rare mobs
>rare mobs are just normal mobs that spawned with slightly higher stats and a colored aura (small chance of occurring based on mob's "level")
>power crystals are tradeable
>maximum of 100 skill points
>skill points and secondary class can be changed and redistributed for free at any inn
>can mix and match various classes together like Berserker/Pyromancer or Necromancer/Druid for example, or can choose to invest all 100 points into your primary tree and be a pure Berserker, Necromancer, etc.
>skill points in secondary tree can not exceed the amount of skill points in primary tree
>every class, no matter the configuration, will have 30-40 different abilities when all 100 skill points are spent
>every class has a different purpose in combat. some are damage dealers, some are healers, some are controllers, some are buffers/support, some are debuffers, some can perform multiple roles albeit not as well as a pure, etc.
>combat functions identically to WoW, but on a modern engine that's even smoother and less laggy
>every mob in the game is assigned a class and skill point distribution, only use abilities that players can use themselves
>PvE functions identically to PvP, just against mobs with scaling AI based on preset difficulty

r8 it

>old trinity
Why do you keep calling it thjat when you've pointed out that there were more than three roles? Look at your FF11 example, there's no 'keep the guys hitting me forever' role there, and that's good.

There does not need to be a dedicated tanking role, and you've proven it with your own words. The 'trinity' is shit and no good MMO ever had one.

>FFXI successfully generated strong communities almost solely because there were so many responsibilities to group combat

But all that meant was you had tons of classes that each performed ONE duty well, and it got boring as shit after a while.

For example, Bards were usually a great asset to the party (though more so after they got MP regen songs), but I was sick as shit of pressing the same few macros over and over again since that was my entire role in the group. You were expected to subclass White Mage, but your low healing meant it didn't do shit to save someone really hurt. The only time I've ever fallen asleep at my keyboard was playing FFXI.

The Trinity is outdated. Every class needs the ability to heal (even if it's just a self-heal), deal damage, and do mob control for it to be enjoyable these days.

For some reason I prefer GW2 system, everyone can do everything but a little bit differently and it feels more realistic, in the end, even if you're just mage would you actually go to actual combat without some means of healing or toughening up? Or if you were warrior wouldn't you pick tool or two to solve things that muscles cannot? I would say that GW2 is fine mix between Diablo and MMO, no macros, pick 10 skills, have dodge and some kind of ress on every class and play.

>sub whitemage healing sucks

You what? The skill that doubles healing and then highest curaga would save the shit out of partys(and normally rip hate and kill you, but meh).

Also, bards were best pullers, way better than thief's and rangers.

>30 different classes
>primary class is selected at character creation and is permanent for that character

Should make for great variety, but balance will as a matter of course be harder and balanced encounters easier to break. Permanent mains will hurt replayability and circulation through low level areas but should stratify class interdependence and lend an economic scarcity to player roles, so that's a wash. 6

>secondary classes are earned via specific quests, every class can be unlocked as secondary

Love discovering new schools of combat or magic as cohesive in-setting entities in the game world, 10.

>no leveling system
>abilities and passives are unlocked via spending skill points in talent trees
>skill points are obtained by using power crystals (lack of a better term)
>power crystals are obtained from rare mobs
>etc. etc. etc.

RNG spawns and spawn camping will really suck the life out of hunting the game world, and trees will again throw balance into disarray and open up larger power gaps between talent combos. I would suggest a hybrid where normal talents are obtained through points accrued from killing all things as usual (experience), but a set of iconic and characterful abilities are gated behind these special crystal-powered skill points, and these are stuck on world bosses and controlled encounters. 3

>skill points and secondary class can be changed and redistributed for free at any inn
>can mix and match various classes together like Berserker/Pyromancer or Necromancer/Druid for example, or can choose to invest all 100 points into your primary tree and be a pure Berserker, Necromancer, etc.
>skill points in secondary tree can not exceed the amount of skill points in primary tree

Sweet. 8

>to be cont'd

meta would be discovered in 1 week. them everyone would be sausagemage/tecnomancer or whatever best combo is for a specific role

Eh, the problem is the trinity and forced rolls really make MMOs boring.

MMORPGs at least should be about creating a character and adventuring with friends through a world of danger and mystery, but somehow we've ended up creating a very metagame driven loot grind with less adventure and more boss grinding

In reality an MMO should really have many many different facets of player niches, and not all of them should be combat, but because WOW became the gold standard and nerfed/removed/never had anything resembling player driven gameplay, every MMO since has suffered.

At the end of the day, the trinity was designed due to trying to "balance" the MMO, its an arbitrary, and bad system, to make up for the fact that MMOs come with shit AI and shit mechanics, which is why you need damage sponges and heal spammers.

I for one can't wait for MMOs to return to their RPG roots and give players better options and dynamic world design for many different niches, I just want to be a wizard who explores ruins for lost magic with some friends, not some guy in a dress spamming fireball.

>every class, no matter the configuration, will have 30-40 different abilities when all 100 skill points are spent
Completely valid to double down on hotbar dance combat if that's what you want. Beware the Rift problem where powerful and iconic abilities are gated behind heavy point investment, essentially axing hybrid build viability out of the gate. Attempting multiple styles and frequency of inputs with different classes should give you a lot of mileage out of this system, like some with short cooldown whack-a-mole WoW abilities, some with FFXIV combo strings to do in sequence, etc. 7

>every class has a different purpose in combat. some are damage dealers, some are healers, some are controllers, some are buffers/support, some are debuffers, some can perform multiple roles albeit not as well as a pure, etc.
Balance nightmare again, but seems a given at this point so no big d. Encounter design is almost more important to role viability than class design is. Mob health and behavior, aggro/ai mechanics, and mob abilities must all interact interestingly with buffs/debuffs/controls to justify these systems. I think the design of incredibly powerful yet short term status effects is a good one for a game with a PVE focus, rewarding coordination and timing. Damage output should rise by hundreds of percentile points when a mob's defense is opened up adequately. 7

>combat functions identically to WoW, but on a modern engine that's even smoother and less laggy
Sure. 9

>every mob in the game is assigned a class and skill point distribution, only use abilities that players can use themselves
Possibly over-complicated. 3

>coooooooonttttttt'd

Just stop playing mainstream shit, they're all wow clones, and it just encourages more to be made

>PvE functions identically to PvP, just against mobs with scaling AI based on preset difficulty
Preset difficulty means instanced content, further fracturing the open-world nature of the game. Not necessarily a negative but keep in mind. Complex AI in online games is rarely seen because most of the computation is traditionally done client-side. Reference and compare Vermintide's Rat AI with different host players to see this in action. I do think there is hope for a more complex aggro mechanic however, where different mobs react differently to each relative level of aggro they trigger on players. Assassins and snipers target players with LOW aggro, ranged mobs move away and attack high aggro targets while melee mobs move close, etc. Even just a little variation in behavior goes a long way. 6

>tank-heal-control

Hahaha, that was not the trinity in EQ. The trinity was:

Necromancer-Necromancer-Scrubs surrounding the necromancer

Fucking faggot, I bet you weren't even a skeleton.

What game?

I liked smiting in Guild Wars 1. I'd like every class to have supplemental heals on certain skill types, still need a healer, but be able to spec into being a primary healer. But even primary healers still need to attack to get their abilities to work, or similar.

Guild Wars 2 made the mistake of trying to remove healers entirely. Most other games make the mistake of trying to force people into incredibly tight roles, so healers only ever heal or buff, tanks are only allowed to resist damage and nothing else, and DPSs are the "real" class that just cycles through buttons.

Haven and hearth

mmorpgs are dead

>Necromancer-Skeleton-Skeleton
>Skeleton: Nerf Necromancer, Skeletons are fine.

I think you need to design the game from the ground up with the specific roles you have in mind, however many roles there are, then, for each role, have one specific class or character type that just plainly does that role best, don't try to have 2 100% tank classes, for example, if you do, just integrate all those options into one class. After that, you can start creating other classes with one unique gimmick that no one else can do or some sort of specific utility benefit (like being able to heal 75% as well as the main healing class and deal 75% of the physical damage of the main phys damage class)

Class-based MMO's specifically run into problems when they try to support the idea that two different classes can perform in the exact same way, which is flawed in its nature.

half of the shit you just said was GW1

But you are the skeleton

Thanks. It looks interesting.

Eh, I really think the class system has little to no place in MMOs, you can build your character based on equipment and tasks, and if you wanted to become more like a certain style, you should be able to.

At their roots MMOs are really just digitialized tabletop RPGs, and most tabletop RPGs are more open ended, even D&D you could learn spells on a warrior and pick locks as a paladin with feats.

Really though, more player driven content is needed, metagames be damned I just want to be that one asshole who learns necromancy and raises an army of the dead.

How about an ed edd and eddy MMO

FFXI was amazing. No other MMO has had that much class diversity. Everyone was responsible for DPS, everyone was responsible for enmity management. You weren't confined to your job role.

I miss it.

Control is just a fancy word for support, but you're basically on the right track.

The trinity exists because in combat two things will happen, someone does damage, and someone takes damage. If combat lasts long enough you need someone to Support (Through Heals, Buffs/Debuffs, Crowd Control). That's the trinity. Do Damage, Take Damage, Support.

Every group game based around combat has some version of the trinity. DOTA/LoL/HoS, Do Damage, Take Damage, Support. TF2/Overwatch/Other Shooters, Do Damage, Take Damage, Support.

How do you change it? Take out the "Damage Doers" and fights last forever. Take Out the Support, and fights are 2 short. So, Take out the Damage Takers. Do Damage and Support. You end up with MMO Diablo, a bunch of DPSers with Support Skills. I imagine fights would mostly be about exchanging cooldowns, and basically platforming puzzles of staying out of the danger zones, and crowd control abilities. Maybe interesting, but would it be that different from WoW? Not Really.

>If combat lasts long enough you need someone to Support (Through Heals, Buffs/Debuffs, Crowd Control).
ehh

imo there's still a distinction to be made between healer and a class that solely focuses on increasing damage dealt through buffs and debuffs. It's not directly damage dealing and it doesn't do anything to keep your party alive.

Its simple

Make every class responsible for mitigating their own damage and create AI and combat mechanics that aren't from 1999

What I want for PvE:

Instanced small group content with a large variety of builds and varied bosses. Toukiden: Kiwami fulfilled this perfectly.

What I want for PvP:
Best loot being crafted from materials that can only be farmed from monsters and gathering in a full loot ffa pvp zone. Seizable strongholds, towers and traderoutes that can all be raided.

Don't try and mix the too, it will end up being horrible.

But how do we do that?

They need to move away from boss grinding and return to dungeon and world exploring with friends.

I like you OP, you have decent points.

Personally, I loved EQ's rendition of the trinity and despise what WoW did to it.

I miss Enchanters so much. Or when Roots were actually useful. When crowd control meant more than using skills that wiped out an entire crowd.

ffxi had buff/debuffing jobs who were extremely good at doing them but not a whole lot else, so it had 4 major roles. problem came from easy mitigation thanks to subbing ninja for its utsusemi spells, so you rarely needed a designated tank; any dps with good gear could fill that role as long as they were /nin and kept up with casts or traded hate with others /nin

was an interesting timeframe, since all jobs could /nin and tank similarly, though some had better hate tools outside of damage than others

>But how do we do that?
Hunting genre solved that problem tbqhfam

Monster Hunter is a good example of a good multiplayer combat system for shit like dragon hunting, hell they even have a fucking weapon that makes you a fucking bard that is better then any other RPG's implementation of a bard.

I want an MMO where every class has its own unique role that does a unique thing, not "two classes tank, three heal, and the other four do damage"
It's getting fucking old and the main reason MMOs fail

It's funny that you posted that picture, because I think a fantasy MMO (swords, sorcery and maybe some low tech) would work so well with EVE's player-determined design philosophy behind it.

It would take some genius design, but imagine having a fun and engaging class like a Topographer, or a Caravaneer, along with the more traditional roles like thieves and knights. An MMO with its own kind of society--some players would choose to be bandits, and if you were managing a caravan, you might want to think about hiring knights or mercenaries to guard your shit, all of whom would be players.

So you hire your guards, who are players, after purchasing your travel goods from city merchants, who are players, and had your map updated with interesting shit along the way, by a player who went out and charted the land himself.

It's a pipe-dream that will never really happen, but it's fun to think about sometimes, and it's especially impressive that EVE managed to what it does so well, and for long.

There isn't though, not really. I played an RDM in FFXI, one of the purest support classes in the game, next to BRD and DNC. Combat boiled down to casting the same 4 or 5 spells on the mob, cast heals and buffs on the party, and if the fight lasted longer than 30 seconds, maybe get a dps spell in to try and magic burst. WoW is different because the buffs/debuffs last longer, and are secondary spells on dedicated classes. After Burning Crusade, every class spec had at least some buffs and debuffs to help the party. Take those away, give them to a dedicated buff/debuffs class, Shaman or whatever and you're back to Vanilla where you want a couple shaman and pallys for buffs, but otherwise as dedicated healers, and the rest as pure dps classes or tanks.

EQ is great, shit gets so chaotic

You mean like that failed arch age and BDO? Sure thing

Just give me an MMO with Dark Souls 1 gameplay famalamadingdong

Break up and emphasize support.
Have a dedicated mobility support.
Buff/Debuffs obviously.
Summoning support.
Target analyzing (wouldn't work in WoW, but there are other rpgs where it does)
Area denial.

If you start taking a realistic tactical approach, imagine a raid of 12 dudes with swords fighting a giant Rhino-shark, where you actually physical were would matter a lot more.

The issue with MMO's comes down to latency, you have way to many people to really punish mismanagement and bad tactical play, so actual tactical elements are removed and replaced with numbers balancing.

Imagine a Fire Emblem MMO, or an Age of Empires one, where it's Everquest'd but with its roots and you can start to imagine how you could diversify players.

Are you me?

Because an EVE style fantasy game would be amazing, at least in my head

>Build up your own castles and kingdoms
>Exploit the land for the resources
>Players seige eachothers towns, friends and enemies and grudges are built
>some players who've been playing fucking forever have the ability to become avatars of some kind of god and release doomsday tier magic upon their enemies, like plague of undeath or a tempest of arcane power

Only in my dreams

Archeage was really more WOW clone then an actual MMO.

BDO is good, except its still has bad korean game design where the majority of the game is just mass murder of random mobs for loot that is only profitable in bulk

Like EVE

>mfw MMOs don't have Pullers like Monks any more
>mfw MMOs don't have Enchanters for crown control any more
>mfw MMOs don't have Monks for doing everything incredibly any more
>mfw MMOs have killed Kiting

dqx had player and monster "weight" in that you could push against the monster to keep it away from the target it was running after, delaying its attacks. had weight up and down spells for players and monsters

battle pace was slower to make up for how strong incoming damage from monsters can be

still sad that we'll never see it released outside japan

Pathfinder tried and it crashed and burned.

Personally, I really like the idea of playing some sort of Warrior-Lord, where you are a character but you build up an NPC militia and can combine to form armies and kingdoms, etc. The issue is balancing the power of NPCs versus PCs, because if you're paying gold for followers its going to feel lame if one dude can fuck them all up, and on the other hand if NPCs straight up beat players than noone feels empowered.

It would give you a way to actually participate while offline, though, which has always been Eve's one weakpoint.

I honestly miss the games where there was like maybe 3 or 4 mobs but they were strong and presented a challenge, instead of grabbing 7+ enemies and one person taking all the blows
I want a game where everything has weight to it, Tera was kinda fun in that sense I wasn't sliding around while I swung my axe or running at high speeds as I do combos

>SKELETONS ARE FINE

>how to effectively keep your playerbase below 100

The issue with emphasizing support is it would lead to a lot of similar fights and/or useless players.

You have a bunch of different classes good at this that are not DPS/Tank/Heal, you need to have something for those players to do in every fight, or they're useless beyond mediocre dps/heals built into the class as secondary abilities. Have a "mobility specialist" expect a bunch of fights where bad guys crowd control you. Have "area denial" specialists? Expect a lot of adds, every fight, because otherwise what do they do?

And tank n' spank with "no stand in fir pls" isn't boring?

...

>There isn't though, not really.
So you're saying a class that can debuff the various resistances, increases damage taken, can buff damage dealt, increases attack and cast speed and doesn't have a single heal or ability to reduce damage taken by the party fulfills the same role as a dedicated heal class without any offensive buffs or debuffs?

That's retarded.

>Because an EVE style fantasy game would be amazing, at least in my head
Age of Wushu is probably the closest you can get

When support is a secondary part of Trinity classes, you can have much more variety in fights. Look at say Naxx, how many different fights with different mechanics, patchwerk's hard gear check dps race, Heigan's dance, Etc. Look at Kara, bunch of different fights and mechanics. Variety happens because people aren't stuck with one thing outside the Trinity and have abilities they can use situationally rather than as their dedicated job.

Again, the main difference between buffs/debuffs between WoW and FFXI is a function of the length of time they last vs. the length of fights. Debuffs didn't last in FFXI, so had to be recast multiple times a fight, buffs didn't last, and had to be recast. In WoW buffs are near permanent, and debuffs can be stacked and reupped easily (sunder, warlock curses)

A problem with EVE is you have to constantly be getting larger to take on the next objective. You can't just stay in your tight knit group and hit the next landmark; you can rove around and gank loners but that kind of gameplay only holds your interest for so long.

You end up in asymmetrical fleet fights which always escalates, and as you require more people to match escalating opponents, you lose the core of what bound your group together to begin with. Wormholes addressed this issue a little bit, but it's a bit like instancing the world, and nobody cares that you took over that L5 wormhole because it's not on the map.

The way to solve this is to completely remove heals and potions. Have support classes support parties in other ways like damage mitigation and other utilities. Rogue classes that actually disarm traps and help the party get around some mobs. Design encounters that actually challenge players to finish the entire thing with one life bar and incentivize exploring the whole dungeon.

tl;dr It's a game design issue.

This is precisely what FFXIV is running into today with class design space. New classes are so limited by what has come before, because every member of a 'role' has to be capable of being brought into endgame content which only represents a single very specific meta for that role. We could have crowd tanks, single boss tanks, dodge tanks, and pulling tanks, but take away just one or two magic damage cooldowns and suddenly you have only 20-25% of groups that clear A8S using a PLD, for example.

That's a game specific problem though. XIV is built around highly tuned boss fight content, and as such is easily disrupted by alternate play styles. It should at least have some highly tuned mass battles against hordes of foes to spice things up.

pretty much sounds like guild wars 1 just with more skills used at a time. definitely cut it down to at most 10-15 skills at max skill points, otherwise you will have meta balancing issues like says

>L5 wormhole

without holy trinity you get gw2.

mmos are trash
they have always been trash
no amount of modification can make them not trash

Why is DPS the best thing ever?

What do the buff/debuffs classes do in FFXI when they aren't casting buffs/debuffs? Heal, mostly, because they're subbed whm. So no, not really.

Sorry, C5; have to get the gibberish right.

Many MMOs used various approaches, from classless custom builds as in mabinogi to item-based builds as in eve online. Games like wakfu used to barely care heals and rely a lot on positioning, cc, and other kinds of supports, especially with interesting strategies that require very specific builds and item specs to pull off. Then they decided "fuck it" and made the whole game a pure damage-per-turn race, but still.

Then of course there's EQ-likes.

MMOs truly are dead, but obviously the best solutions are either custom builds (either skill-based or item-based, e.g. an MMO-adapted version of path of exile), or a completely new and innovative system.

are pokemon controlled like gundams in g gundam now?

>I have never played an MMO in my life

just let damage dealers and healers do the same damage as the control classes, problem solved.

healer damage could be done in various ways.

Why have one lategame character able to participate in everything late game?

Let's say at level 500 of NewMidWestRPG Online there are 8 late game dungeons.
Have one focus on Buffs/Debuffs
One focused on Mobility
One focused on Damage output
One focused on class Tank and Heal
One puzzle dungeon
One where the hybrid classes work the best, like a timed multi-objective dungeon.
Etc.

Make it to where even the best Warrior can only participate in 5 or 6 of the 8 dungeons, make him have to roll a Ranger to do those other two, while giving him two choices for Dungeon 3 and 4 since both Rangers and Warriors do well.

It's alright to have the weird support/control/hybrid classes not be able to participate in everything... but you can also have dungeons that don't support Tank/Heal/Deeps, etc.

This will also likely diversify the late game meta, as said Ranger will act completely different between a dungeon where Warrior/Wizard/Cleric is present versus one where Monks/Heal Shamans/Enchanters are the focus.

Get rid of the expectation that you only have to level one character through.

thx for reminding me how retarded the show is

good idea as well my nigger. eliminate healing classes!

>TFW crafting jewing is dead in MMOs except EVE

Just kill me, thats all I was ever good at

Then what good are the damage dealers? You're not creating a table, just replacing one side of the Trinity (damage replaced with control)

numbers-numberdown-numbersup

MMOs are dying because of one thing - classes.

Everybody's split on the ideals of a class system or lack thereof, ranging from freeform to strict trinities.

The problem? Metagaming.

As previously mentioned earlier, even if you gave players massive freedom in builds and classes, it'd take a short time before meta builds emerge and dominate the rest. It's impossible to balance something of this magnitude so of course meta builds are a question of when, not if.

Trinity styled MMOs where there are clear cut classes and roles are much easier to balance but presents a different set of problems where roles become dull and cookie cutter strategies and builds once again emerge.

Everybody wants to build the way they want but not everybody wants to be efficient and not everybody wants to have fun. Metagaming killed MMOs.

Or how about eliminate both dedicated healers and dedicated tanks. All classes are different types of dps, ranged, melee, magic, physical with different mechanics (pets, necromancy, combos, energy, take hits, bleeds, traps, blah blah), as well as some buff/debuffs abilities and damage mitigation/threat mitigation abilities. Diablo II, the MMO. Boss fights get to be crowd control, movement and threat management based all at the same time,with the boss going after different people all the time and each player using whatever abilities they have to counter that while the boss is coming after them.

>holy trinity
>tank-heal-control

I think you mean bard-bard-bard.

Excuse me while I kite your entire fucking zone.

Your explanation really only leaves one option open, randomness.

Essentially, force people to build ahead of time for multiple possible outcomes.

The issue with that, is that when you get to floor 4 of late game Uberdungeon and you open up the throne room, and, look, oh joy its Prince Unfuck and his two Night Mistresses... again, fuck I wish we could get the Princess encounter, Holy Choir, or King Unfuck just once this month, god damn. Etc.

You start fucking around with expectation range and people start get frustrated very, very very fast.

>tfw instead of reshackel/resheep/rebanish/refear even, it became spinn-to-win thru the dungeon instead
>even threat became a minor thing

>multitude of diverse and specific jobs

I guess this, but I just miss the days back in TBC on WoW where I actually had to use my CC spells

>I've never played an MMO before therefore I'm an expert on the subject

no sorry I brainfarted. What I mean is: Do not have dedicated damage dealers. Have tank/heal/control and let all of them do equal amounts of damage alongside all of the other stuff they do. damage required to kill a boss is then split between all classes and bosses and stuff should give everyone stuff to do besides just dealing damage.

the idea is to just get away from encounters where a portion of the raid just stands there dealing damage. you don't do that in any single player game, why should you do it in an mmo?

Yeah, this is what I thought as well. The real solution is to move the focus away from class systems towards the environment.

Metabuilds are built to suit the environment in a darwin-vidya fashion where nonmeta builds aren't taken in parties and the meta ones are sought after.

So let's make the game focus on the environment and creating randomness that niche/specialized builds will struggle with versus spread out classes.

A new problem though - how random? People will record and turn everything predictable and THEN build a metabuild for the best consistent result.

Too random? Player builds are muddled as everyone tries to do everything, losing any sense of identity that makes playing an RPG fun.

Starting to either feel like a catch-22 or a really complex problem that hasn't really been solved in decades.

Just standing there is generally only one patchwerk like dps test fights, or vanilla (or old EQ) style tank and spanks, which are basically non-existant any more. Anyone who says the Trinity is boring because of tank and spank fights doesn't play any more.

Eq clone or not, every MMO is slightly different.

The issue with a "multitude of diverse and blah blah blah" is that you push too much on the plate too fast.

Start out with 4 classifications, whatever your core loop is, Tank/Heals/Deeps or otherwise, and one wildcard classification.

Then allow the game to adapt around that, then add stuff one at a time so everything has a nice, organic purpose in your meta.

Players will decide the roles of certain classes one way or another, no one was really a "battle Engy" in vanilla TF2 for example. Let players have control of class dynamic because they will gain said control one way or another eventually. Then when everything is settled throw in a new wildcard class and let them find their place, keep what you have to buff/nerf and edit to a minimum. Let things evolve organically.

Don't just develop Knight, Barbarian, Paladin, and Soldier class from the get go, then get mad when players start enforcing Knight and Paladin-only tanking just because you gave the other two tanking abilities. Devs need to suck it up and understand they don't have 100% of control over their game so rapid expansion results in shit and hurt feelings.

Consumers love large markets, small producers don't. Once there's global markets in your game, the crafting game is commoditized and they race to the bottom of whoever can produce it for the cheapest. The alternatives in the past were a trade chat, which ends up a spam of things few people are interested in. EVE uses regional markets, which to start off was a happy medium, but it's been around for so long that players have largely organized the regional markets into a global market through the eve market data relay. There aren't really huge 'profits' to be made in EVE producing things now, you're trading time and effort for a small margin above cost; which is basically growing your value at about the rate the money supply continues to increase.

>Get rid of the expectation that you only have to level one character through.
Fuck alts. Really. Why should you be forced to level another character if you want to experience all the content? (Aside from single class specific quest chains, I suppose.) If I'm good enough, then why shouldn't I be able to be successful in every dungeon?

Aw that's sad, you should play a few before the genre is completely dead.

Sort of, but you haven't taken into account Piracy and the fact that Eve, to a small degree, has evolved compound services, i.e. sales, buyer loyalty, expiditing, things they can onto your 10 x Iron Ingot that make it a better deal 910 currency then the 10 x Iron Ingot you can get for 800 currency some place else.

Overall you are right though, MMO markets don't realistically immitate things like quality control or stock value (it happens only in extreme circumstances like the recent huge server war, any normal day will demand the same amount of Refined Sand as any other normal day).

How would you go about introducing creative advantages in MMO markets?

Because that forces you to be useful in every dungeon that comes out, which reduces class and encounter variety, making the game copy/paste.

The way you can advance to the late game can be made more diverse, though. Mid game should be similarly fun to late game.

>What do the buff/debuffs classes do in FFXI when they aren't casting buffs/debuffs? Heal, mostly, because they're subbed whm. So no, not really.
You're talking FFXI.

I'm not.

>It should at least have some highly tuned mass battles against hordes of foes to spice things up.
There's always the odd turn consisting solely of waves of trash mobs.