Jan 22 2009
Tank, Healer, DPS - Still Happy with the Holy Trinity?
The so-called “holy trinity” of class design has been around since the early MUDs. Yes, that means it pre-dates all the shiny, glowy graphical MMORPGs. It was a dominant feature of DIKU MUDs, whose original classes were fighter, healer, wizard, thief. That gave you tank, healer, and two dps (ranged and melee, but range was meaningless in pure room based MUDs). Things really haven’t changed much since then. At most, I would change it to only one of the following:
Tank, Support, DPS
or
Tank, Healer, Crowd Control, Support (buffs), DPS
Are you happy with this arrangement? Does this provide enough game play variety for players? If not, what are the flaws? What would you change (if anything) to improve it, tweak it, or overhaul it completely? And where do hybrids factor into all of this? Do they screw up the whole concept entirely or do they fill in the gaps where necessary? I know you all must have some strong opinions on this, so let ‘er rip!
For me it is all about the classes being balanced. If you make them very different but have them fill the same roles you often end up with a balancing issue.
I like for people to have a well thought out role in a battle that gives meaning to this character.
It’s fine with me if all classes are hybrids or similiar, but most games I have played it end up being the pure classes who are the best for the large group because you always end up doing a very narrow job when raiding. When doing a 5-man run in WoW there is actually room for special abilities and the hybrids gain more importance because they can switch role, but it is extreamly hard to balance these things and if you fail at the balancing the game is ruined in my eyes.
So go with 3-5 classes and if you put more classes in the game then you better use a whole lot of time making sure they all have something that make them a wanted class when people make a group. And if you have overlapping roles you better use an insane amount of time balancing things out.