Kachi wrote:
@Callinon: Guild Wars 2 did away with the trinity system and introduced other party dynamics in its place. The problem wasn't with this particular decision, but that they failed to balance those party dynamics so that they were actually viable. I mean, you can shoot an arrow through a wall of fire and it turns into a flaming arrow. Cool! But, unfortunately, pretty useless. There are plenty of other games that kept the trinity and because of their failure to balance the trinity, it ended with the same problem... the party dynamics were still basically nonexistant. Moral of the story; it doesn't matter what your party dynamic is if you don't actually balance it.
You could have 100 different roles; it all depends on the foundational mechanics of the game. More roles or fewer roles aren't inherently better or worse. (I'm just pointing out that developers lazily glorify the trinity system without actually understanding it. It's not that the trinity inherently facilitates strategic party play or anything like that.) However, the more roles you require for a functioning party, the more you limit player abilities to build a functioning party. If any mishmash of roles will do, then a party finder is completely useless. My point being, if you don't create the problem, you don't need to create the solution.
Edited, Jan 9th 2013 10:07pm by Kachi
You could have 100 different roles; it all depends on the foundational mechanics of the game. More roles or fewer roles aren't inherently better or worse. (I'm just pointing out that developers lazily glorify the trinity system without actually understanding it. It's not that the trinity inherently facilitates strategic party play or anything like that.) However, the more roles you require for a functioning party, the more you limit player abilities to build a functioning party. If any mishmash of roles will do, then a party finder is completely useless. My point being, if you don't create the problem, you don't need to create the solution.
Edited, Jan 9th 2013 10:07pm by Kachi
I dont know how you would build an RPG without defining roles such as the trinity. I've seen games that tried to do away with it like you said, but all it does is create more chaos in the grand scheme of things. Having a trinity, and every support role in between creates purpose. In a role playing sense, everyone involved in the group would like to have a special or unique purpose, hence the term "role playing game"
I tend to think of rpg battles as sort of a puzzle so to speak. If the developers design the game to where a trinity can solve it, then they will design battles accordingly. Of course, this is the most popular method of group dynamics for quite some time now and i think its mainly because of what i said earlier - everyone wants to have a meaningful purpose to their group or a "role" to play.
I think that in an rpg where there are many roles but are less definitive, you run into a situation like in Borderlands or Diablo where it almost becomes every man for himself. I'm not saying that teamwork cant come into play, but dimishes the reliance you would need for teamates. All the teamates represent at this point are more companions to finish the puzzle with. If somehow you can create some kind of reliance by needing other team members, then that would entirely something else.