Theory Crafting MMO Roles

[Col. Kernel]

Edit: This is a kind of rambling post, and it seems a few people have missed the core parts of it. I'm going to change up the formatting so people can see what's important and what they feel they can skip. The 4 Role Model is the centerpiece of this post, and generally speaking of this thread

============================Background============================
I've been playing RPGs since the D&D white box set. I played MUDs throughout the 90s, first on BBS, then later on newly blossoming Internet. I was busy with RL when MMORPGs first came out (UO, Ever Quest) but I had friends that played, so I still got an earful. When my son got interested in CoH prior to Issue 3 I took one look at it and went out and bought myself a copy the same day.

I was familiar with the concept of the trinity from my MUD days and from hearing my best bud talk about EQ. When I started playing CoH there was no need for the trinity in that game, and my first though was "Cool, gaming has evolved". Yet, sadly, many MMO designers still think that you need the MMO trinity to force players to team. This is just not so. Yet, to find the alternatives to the trinity you need to break down the roles of the trinity and compare them to what roles are actually available in the metagame.

==========================Defining the Trinity==========================
The trinity consists, obviously, of the Tank, the Healer, and the DPS. But are those the only meta roles available? My answer is "no". Given that it is possible to improve the stats of players, or disimprove the stats of the mobs we have another role that falls outside the classic trinity. We also have a role where a player can stop the mobs from moving (but not from attacking), prevent them from moving and attacking, or cause them to attack a target other than the one that they (the mob) have selected. My breakdown on the metagame roles then is as follows;

===========================The 4 Role Model==========================
Damage (aka DPS)
Brings the pain to the mobs, reduces mob HP until the mob is dead.

Healer
Replaces HP on friendlies. Again, this is self explanatory.

Buff/Debuff (hereinafter De/Buff)
Improves or disimproves stats such as defense, damage resistance, accuracy, movement speed, recharge speed, etc, etc, etc for friendlys or mobs respectively.

Control
This role controls some aspect of the mob's behavior, who they attack, whether they can move, whether they can attack, and so forth. The trinity tank role falls within this role.

The trinity exists as the dominant model because the De/Buff and Control rolls are not balanced against it, relegating them to background support, usually hybridized with another role (typically the Healer).

The key to eliminating the trinity is balance, specifically balance with the De/Buff role. The De/Buff roll typically reduces incoming damage or increases outgoing damage, though if created innovatively by the devs can have additional functionality. This reduces the need for healing, and should therefore result in Healing being nerfed if De/Buff is buffed. This is, of course, speaking of using pure roles when designing character classes. We'll get back to this when we discuss hybridization.

The Control roll is tricky to balance. The Tank's aggro management needs to be powerful enough to be effective, but not so powerful that the rest of the team is not taking damage at all. Then there is the matter of preventing attacks (hereinafter referred to as "holds" or "holding"). This was so over powered in CoH that the players referred to the game as "City of Statues" until holds were nerffed. Part of the problem is that holds are binary, the mob is held, or they aren't. One possible solution for this to have this particular type of control work as a slow and needing to have it stack sufficiently to become a hold.

========================Summary of 4 Role Model=======================
The key advantage to the 4 Role Model is that no one role is required, yet teaming is beneficial to all. Every role, including DPS, is considered a support role simply because every member of the team is supporting the team.

We've hit on why the trinity is obsolete (it's not required to encourage teaming, and lacks flexibility), an alternate 4 role model, and some of the pitfalls and advantages of the 4 role model.

TL;DR
Come back and read the full thing when you have time. The short version is the trinity is still widely used despite being obsolete.

 

[Col. Kernel]

In my first post I outlined the 4 Role Model (what I call it, anyway), and compare it to the MMO trinity. They key difference between the two is that certain roles are required for the trinity, whereas with the 4 role model any combination of roles should be sufficient to deal with most content.

I consider the first post to be a 20,000 foot view (as if you were flying over in a plane), and in this post we'll drop down to 10,000 for a closer look at character design.

Additional balance can be found between the roles by not locking each role into a single character class. The basics of this are already in common usage, there isn't a class in any MMO I am aware of that can't do any damage, so the DPS role is part of every class.

Moving into the concept of designing a new class, given the need to nerf Healing if you improve De/Buffing, put both abilities on one character (along with DPS) for a balanced class (that is after tweaking the numbers).

The important thing to remember is that hybridization is NOT homogenization. What we do NOT want is for every class to play the same, feel the same. Most classes should be able to readily solve 60%-75% of the problems (mobs) faced in the game. Just not the same group of problems for each class. This encourages grouping without making it required, you just understand that some parts of your solo journey will be more difficult than others.

 

[Sik San]

Trinity concept is rly outdated. Yeah, it was necessary 15 years ago. But it's 2016 now. I'd rather play smth with no tanks and heals - AI these days evolved enough to deliver something more interesting than tank'n'spank or "hey, you jump every 30s after the mob shouts the keyword".
I'd rather see a tank evolving in some kind of control guy that creates different obstacles and difficulties on the way of smart enough mob seeking for suitable targets, and not just blindly attacking a guy using bad words about the mob's mom.

I'd like to see heals could change their purpose from HP restoring to dmg control/prevent. I never liked that magical healing. If you got filled with bullets - you're pretty dead, but there are plenty of ways to prevent this - shields, for example

 

[Col. Kernel]

I've finished the 2nd post.

Trinity concept is rly outdated. Yeah, it was necessary 15 years ago. But it's 2016 now. I'd rather play smth with no tanks and heals - AI these days evolved enough to deliver something more interesting than tank'n'spank or "hey, you jump every 30s after the mob shouts the keyword".
I'd rather see a tank evolving in some kind of control guy that creates different obstacles and difficulties on the way of smart enough mob seeking for suitable targets, and not just blindly attacking a guy using bad words about the mob's mom.

I'd like to see heals could change their purpose from HP restoring to dmg control/prevent. I never liked that magical healing. If you got filled with bullets - you're pretty dead, but there are plenty of ways to prevent this - shields, for example

Tank as a Control class is exactly what I'm talking about above. I like your concept of the Tank creating different obstacles in front of the mobs, funneling them into a killing field would be a very nice touch.

I consider SciFi tanking to be different from verbal abuse though. I'm assuming it's a neural aggravation field or a weapons that appears more dangerous than it really is, artificially inflating the Tank's threat level.

As unrealistic as it is, in combat healing is pretty much a staple of MMOs and, as such, will be required unless you completely drop it in favor of De/Buff. in which case you're back to a trinity style of game play again. I prefer the flexibility of characters built around the 4 roles.

 

[Beemann]

Honestly the solution is to make everyone combat first, support second. Everyone should be able to contribute on both fronts, but in different ways. GA had a good example of this in the form of Recons. Recons weren't valued solely for long range damage, but also for their debuff ability. They were excellent at taking out nested targets, cutting down on healing and being an excellent source of burst damage overall. People who could get consistent hits could take down key targets solo, but a smart recon with poor aim could make sure that healing was halved, or that defenses were lowered on those same key targets so that more CQC focused characters could finish the job.

In other words I think you're totally on the right track, but I don't think we should rely on tanks and healers. Healing should be sporadic and tanking should be an act of desperation (taking a hit for another teammate instead of soaking a hit with a giant health pool). Buffs one one class, debuffs on another, situational heals (HOTs maybe) on a third. I also wouldn't be opposed to all of those being ammo-based, to encourage more building and supply drop style interaction, and to prevent the world touring FF had

 

[Luisedgm]

Its probable that there will be no defined roles
the holy trinity is outdated, boring and kills freedom of gameplay choice
also maybe players will be able to customize their omniframes will have non-combat roles, like miner, hacker, sapper, researcher, crafter, etc...

 

[Luisedgm]

I've finished the 2nd post.


Tank as a Control class is exactly what I'm talking about above. I like your concept of the Tank creating different obstacles in front of the mobs, funneling them into a killing field would be a very nice touch.

I consider SciFi tanking to be different from verbal abuse though. I'm assuming it's a neural aggravation field or a weapons that appears more dangerous than it really is, artificially inflating the Tank's threat level.

As unrealistic as it is, in combat healing is pretty much a staple of MMOs and, as such, will be required unless you completely drop it in favor of De/Buff. in which case you're back to a trinity style of game play again. I prefer the flexibility of characters built around the 4 roles.

Healing is not obligatory, specially since this is a shooter game, dodge or die
Every attack can be designed to be avoidable, and players can have mechanics like energy shields you usually see in spaceships, the shield absorbs X, if it doesn't break it will regenerate, damage taken by the frame or the character by being hit without the shield can be fixed on the city or maybe with healing stations out of combat.

 

[Col. Kernel]

Honestly the solution is to make everyone combat first, support second. Everyone should be able to contribute on both fronts, but in different ways. GA had a good example of this in the form of Recons. Recons weren't valued solely for long range damage, but also for their debuff ability. They were excellent at taking out nested targets, cutting down on healing and being an excellent source of burst damage overall. People who could get consistent hits could take down key targets solo, but a smart recon with poor aim could make sure that healing was halved, or that defenses were lowered on those same key targets so that more CQC focused characters could finish the job.

I have a slightly more radical view that agrees with your first sentence. There is no "combat", everyone is support because teaming makes everyone's job easier. The Damage role reduces incoming damage by reducing the number of mobs firing at the team, the Healing role reduces damage by replacing HP, etc, etc, etc. Teaming means the team progresses faster than the individual can solo.

And everyone should contribute in the Damage role as well as one or more additional roles.

In other words I think you're totally on the right track, but I don't think we should rely on tanks and healers. Healing should be sporadic and tanking should be an act of desperation (taking a hit for another teammate instead of soaking a hit with a giant health pool). Buffs one one class, debuffs on another, situational heals (HOTs maybe) on a third. I also wouldn't be opposed to all of those being ammo-based, to encourage more building and supply drop style interaction, and to prevent the world touring FF had

You are absolutely correct, no single role should be required. And with hybridization no single class should be required. Back when I played CoH we (my "clan" and I) would run very tough content. When building a team people would ask what we needed and our response was invariably "Bring what you want, we'll make it work".

This is why I made my 2nd post on Hybridization. Yes, everyone should do good damage, but how? Some classes should just straight up do lots of damage, some should do mediocre damage until they debuff the target, then their damage kicks in, others should do mediocre damage until they AoE buff themselves and their team, then they do good damage. There are a lot of ways to bring the pain.

 

[Col. Kernel]

Its probable that there will be no defined roles
the holy trinity is outdated, boring and kills freedom of gameplay choice
also maybe players will be able to customize their omniframes will have non-combat roles, like miner, hacker, sapper, researcher, crafter, etc...

There were defined roles in Firefall, so I'm expecting them in Ember. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't think so.

And while there will only be one omniframe when the alpha starts, I believe that simply due to a shortage of art resources rather than a design decision. Mr. Kern seems to think highly of horizontal progression for this game and, given how much fun the OB FF was, I'm inclined to support his decision. That decision was implemented with additional frames in OB FF, we'll have to wait and see how it's handled in Ember.

 

[Beemann]

I have a slightly more radical view that agrees with your first sentence. There is no "combat", everyone is support because teaming makes everyone's job easier. The Damage role reduces incoming damage by reducing the number of mobs firing at the team, the Healing role reduces damage by replacing HP, etc, etc, etc. Teaming means the team progresses faster than the individual can solo.

Everyone will contribute either way. You can't really have a shooter with a class that can't shoot at all. My point though is making a class support focused and gimping their damage is a recipe for them being absolutely needed or completely useless, because you're trying to balance utility against combat prowess. This is something that has actually never worked out

This is why I made my 2nd post on Hybridization. Yes, everyone should do good damage, but how? Some classes should just straight up do lots of damage, some should do mediocre damage until they debuff the target, then their damage kicks in, others should do mediocre damage until they AoE buff themselves and their team, then they do good damage. There are a lot of ways to bring the pain.

I don't think anyone should be doing mediocre damage unless they're missing shots. Debuffs should benefit the whole team, and buffs should as well, and if everyone can contribute, why should one player be expected to pull less weight on the damage front?

 

[Col. Kernel]

Everyone will contribute either way. You can't really have a shooter with a class that can't shoot at all. My point though is making a class support focused and gimping their damage is a recipe for them being absolutely needed or completely useless, because you're trying to balance utility against combat prowess. This is something that has actually never worked out

Sorry, I thought I made it clear that everyone shares in the Damage role.

I don't think anyone should be doing mediocre damage unless they're missing shots. Debuffs should benefit the whole team, and buffs should as well, and if everyone can contribute, why should one player be expected to pull less weight on the damage front?

Go back and reread. They do mediocre damage until they do their buff or debuff. Now not only do THEY benefit from their own de/buff but so does the rest of the team.

The individual player is not useless with de/buff skill, nor are they mandatory on a team. They do become a force multiplier and teams will want them.

 

[Aphaz]

well, i kinda liked the A/B/D/E/R roles in FF but i do agree that no role should be mandatory in a team (as u called it trinity rule).
roles do help to show what "u bring to the table" but it's still the player's choice of how "he/she cooks with the ingredient he/she brings"
for example, in FF i had a DF that i used to solo a lot with, i called it my healer/killer and played differently when soloing or team playing even though it had the same abilities (HWave, HBall, HPillar & HDome). when soloing i would use Wave and Ball for damage/knockback and Pillar and Dome for self heal (or sometimes i would use Wave to push enemies onto my Pillar b4 it goes boom XD), while when team playing i would use all of my abilities/hkm for the express purpose of healing my team.

 

[Luisedgm]

There were defined roles in Firefall, so I'm expecting them in Ember. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't think so.

And while there will only be one omniframe when the alpha starts, I believe that simply due to a shortage of art resources rather than a design decision. Mr. Kern seems to think highly of horizontal progression for this game and, given how much fun the OB FF was, I'm inclined to support his decision. That decision was implemented with additional frames in OB FF, we'll have to wait and see how it's handled in Ember.

We had X on Y game, so this game has to have X too
This is how you kill inovation
This is why we have so many WoW clones
Think outside the box

 

[Col. Kernel]

We had X on Y game, so this game has to have X too
This is how you kill inovation
This is why we have so many WoW clones
Think outside the box

Did you even read my OP? Think outside the box is what I did.

If you don't have different roles for the players then every character will be identical. That doesn't leave much room for replay value.

Besides, Mark Kern already said he wanted horizontal progression, as was in the original beta of Firefall. He wants to remake something not entirely unlike the extremely popular game the investors destroyed.

 

[Antipruritic]

Everyone should deal damage and have the tools to forgo their support side for even more damage.

Interdependence works in classic mmos because of how they've designed the game. In group content the first thing to attempt to do is control the battlefield, you want the target you're actively fighting on the tank and everything else crowd controlled. There really isn't a way to emulate this in a shooter. There really shouldn't be an aggro system, that would of remove the shoot aspect of the game.

How do you make a game where each class has to rely on each other while still making it a shooter? This probably goes beyond just class roles and really goes into how group content will be designed. In a classic mmo if you could go without a tank or healer you probably would. Players will often go the path of least resistance, if it can be soloed most will. If you could avoid every single shot then theoretically you could complete some fight that was designed for a group.

You're simply looking at a whole other bird, everyone has to mitigate damage, deal damage, dodge bullets, and then recover health when there is time.

From my experience in FireFall there were too many ways to recover health. Hp5 gear, health dropped everywhere from creatures, you get the idea. There was never a real need for a healers, probably because the game wanted us to keep on shooting.

I suggest we have more than one than health pool. This health pool would be intended to tank open world content, or solo content. We could call this health pool "Shields." The idea is that solo monsters will have a tougher time dealing with shields while a monster intended for a group could shred through it with ease. Shields would recharge and could be built to regen over time, creatures could drop shield-packs. The main health bar could then be more rigid and only recover when out of combat, with a healer, or a consumable(with a lengthy cooldown.) If we do something like this then the healer role would seem more obvious and then needed for group content.

Going back to tanks, in FireFall we had tanky characters, but that isn't the same thing. There isn't a real need for a tank in shooter, but perhaps we could redirect what the tank did. To do this we need to list what exactly a tank was doing.

• It controlled one or more mobs
  
• Sometimes it directed the focus of a group
  
• It could take more hits than other classes (Firefall did this)

A "tank" in Firefall was simply a dude with more health, not exactly a role. Yeah sure it had a bubble for safer revives and maybe a few other tricks, but nothing ground breaking. No one was clamoring for this roll(butter please,) it was basically unneeded.

Since we don't want a pure support class it would probably be best to separate these jobs into other frames. Higher health is just a flavor since no one really needs to take more hits.

In Firefall there was no real hard crowd control, this could really be a role that if designed right would make group content impossible to solo. Ember could do a "everybody gets one" approach to crowd control so that way we try to diversify a bit. Unsure if this is a job we want for one frame, perhaps a tankier frame gets a few more options than other frames, unsure.

When it comes to directing the focus of a group in FireFall there is one thing that comes to mind and that is the Thumper. Any frame could defend it from incoming damage by destroying everything before it got a chance to react. There was one frame that was the best at doing this and that was the Engineer. Because of this superiority, the engineer class felt pigeon holed into having to turrets.

I suggest that turrets are removed from any one class and instead become a craftable deployable. This will allow a little more freedom for solo or small groups without an engineer.

A mechanic frame would basically maintain any and all deployables, from thumpers to turrets. Their job is to basically "heal" these devices. Since they mechanically devices will be the tanks of whatever activity. This means for most or any group content we'll need consumables. Perhaps some vehicle content with engineers to maintain it. The devil is in the details at this point.

 

[TankHunter678]

There were defined roles in Firefall, so I'm expecting them in Ember. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't think so.

There were defined roles in Firefall because it included a competitive team based PvP that played out like other Team Based Action Shooters (at the time, TF2 later Overwatch).

Ember does not need defined roles until it gets its PvP, which will be segregated off from PvE. So there would be a series of Defined Role PvP Frames at which point Role Design becomes important.

 

[spiralofhope]

There were defined roles in Firefall, so I'm expecting them in Ember. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't think so.

Notes on classes can be found in these Q&As:

https://forums.emberthegame.com/threads/__.172/
http://thegg.net/interviews/interview-with-mark-kern-about-his-upcoming-mmo-game-ember/

The horizontal progression allows for "roles", and since it is $CURRENT_YEAR we don't need classes.

 

[MattHunX]

Agree with the OP.

Just because they've established some standard, way back when, it doesn't mean that standard cannot or should not be tweaked and expanded on. With that said, we all saw games, since, that diversified those three main rolls via specialization or classes that were a mix of the two, or a mix of all three, all-around.

However, a lot of games still force the player to only use equipment and weapons that are supposedly suited for the archetype they play. If you're e.g.: a spell-caster (healer, crowd-controller, elemental, debuffer, buffer...etc.), you can only wear light armor or robes. If you're a scout (DPS, ranged, melee, tracking, marking, trapping, distracting...etc.), you're often restricted to light equipment.

If we're going to have different parts to our armor, and we can already mix and match with different manufacturers, then we should definitely be allowed to diversify, not just our physical appearance, but our roles and play-style, being an amalgam of the different roles and their signature equipment. But, like I said, it should also effect mobility and other aspects of the game. If you want to be a healer or crowd-controller, decked out in heavy armor, you can be, but it'll cost you speed and agility. If you want to be a light-footed, light-armored, heavy-hitter, expect to take more damage, and avoid it with your added mobility.

Firefall became ridiculous. The heavier frames are completely unbalanced. They have become the DPS and the tank in one. And some can even shoot across the sky and move around, get to places, perches, vantage points, faster than frames that are meant to. I

 

[TankHunter678]

Firefall became ridiculous. The heavier frames are completely unbalanced. They have become the DPS and the tank in one. And some can even shoot across the sky and move around, get to places, perches, vantage points, faster than frames that are meant to. I

Notice though that Dreadnoughts while DPS and Tank in one were slow, which is why they were picked for content that did not require speed. Taking on a raid boss in its arena Dreads could go into turret mode and just keep shields, consumables, and defensive skills going to tank through whatever attacks the boss does. It is also why Dreadsnought universally built to improve their tanking ability. They don't really dodge much, but they could absorb a ton.

You mention the Assaults and yeah they could get around fast, but they also were not the most durable of things on the field. Their durability came more from their evasive capabilities then anything else. Which is what also made them good for getting people up, or for grabbing mobs attention.

I cannot count the times on my Firecat in 1.3 during Operation Miru where I danced with the hissers to distract them so my allies could plant the charges, Apothesis 5 charge Afterburner, a Thermal Wave with an area of effect the size of a OW house, Bombs away that I could fire off behind me, and Shockwave as another damage move and ability reset to keep my mobility up. It was some of the best fun I ever had in the game (though I could still die if I was not on the ball).

 

[MattHunX]

Notice though that Dreadnoughts while DPS and Tank in one were slow, which is why they were picked for content that did not require speed. Taking on a raid boss in its arena Dreads could go into turret mode and just keep shields, consumables, and defensive skills going to tank through whatever attacks the boss does. It is also why Dreadsnought universally built to improve their tanking ability. They don't really dodge much, but they could absorb a ton.

You mention the Assaults and yeah they could get around fast, but they also were not the most durable of things on the field. Their durability came more from their evasive capabilities then anything else. Which is what also made them good for getting people up, or for grabbing mobs attention.

I cannot count the times on my Firecat in 1.3 during Operation Miru where I danced with the hissers to distract them so my allies could plant the charges, Apothesis 5 charge Afterburner, a Thermal Wave with an area of effect the size of a OW house, Bombs away that I could fire off behind me, and Shockwave as another damage move and ability reset to keep my mobility up. It was some of the best fun I ever had in the game (though I could still die if I was not on the ball).

True, but being DPS and tank in one, is already unbalanced. If one can soak up tons of punishment, it might be expected that they ought to be able to dish it out, of course, but it is not balanced, then. Tanks should have moderate or medium damage, at most. DPS characters, then, should be more fragile, but more mobile.