Embracing the Trinity - (Apr. 21st, 2009)
Curse Exclusive Dev Blog w/Hue Henry
Hue's Second Rule of MMO Design: The collective intelligence of MMO Players is much greater than the collective intelligence of MMO Designers.
I don't even have to think for a moment when I am asked about my favorite aspect of MMOs. My favorite part, without any doubt, is the players. I've seen MMO players defeat gods that designers thought were immortal, decode cryptographic messages in less time than it took to develop the code, infect entire cities with plagues, use crates and blasters to make decorative furniture, and murder the highest-ranked avatar in a game.
MMO players are simply amazing. No matter what "it" is, if it's possible in an MMO, players will not only find a way to do it, they will find the best way to do it. The best example of this is the trinity of MMO combat. The idea of healer/tank/DPS wasn't created by a game designer. It was created by players!
Originally, in pen and paper games and early computer RPGs, player classes were designed only with Role Playing in mind. Wizards weren't designed to be DPS classes; they were designed to be Gandalf. Fighters weren't designed to be tanks; they were designed to be Conan. Clerics weren't designed to be healers; they were designed to be "heroes of the gods."
MMO players are smarter than MMO designers. They looked at the problem - "that boss has loot that I want" - and they used their collective intelligence to determine the best possible solution to that problem. Players quickly learned that the best solution involves making the enemy attack Conan, instead of smashing poor Gandalf. Not only does it save Conan from having to chase the enemy down before he can hit him with his sword, but Conan is also more likely to survive the enemy's attacks than the cloth-wearing magic user.
Remember Hue's Second Law? It comes into play here.
No matter how the game is designed, no matter how smart the game designers are, the players will find the optimal solution. If players have even the tiniest control over which player the enemy attacks, they will learn to make the enemy attack the player most likely to survive. Then, they will learn how to make that player as "survivable" as possible. They will outsmart the designers. They will invent the "tank."
Once a group has a tank, the remaining members of the group can afford to trade survivability for more damage. The more damage they do, the sooner the problem can be solved, and so, the optimal solution is to make that sacrifice, and transform the other classes into the glass-cannons we've come to know and love.
If a game allows healing, it can make the tank even more survivable, and allow a party to face off against bigger and badder (and more loot-filled) enemies. As long as you have a capable tank, sacrificing survivability for healing as much as possible is a better solution. In time, healers become squishy, too.
Many MMO designers think they can outsmart their players and make a game where this trinity doesn't exist. I'm not that arrogant. I realize, and love, the fact that our players are smarter than I am. I want to take advantage of that intelligence, and use it to make Alganon better than I could ever make it on my own.
I realize that if we try to get rid of "tanking" and try to give all players the same survivability, players will find even the smallest flaw in our design. If a class has even a microscopically better chance to survive, players will, in their slow, but inevitable migration to the perfect solution, discover this and use it to their advantage. In other words, we will not have created a game without tanks, we will have created a game with lousy tanks.
If we try to get rid of "glass cannons" and try to give all players the same level of damage output, players will still find a way to maximize their damage done. If a class has even a the slightest advantage in damage per second, players will discover this and sacrifice everything they can to maximize this damage. In other words, we will not have created a game without DPS; we will have created a game with lousy DPS.
If we remove healers, players will find a way to increase the amount of life their tanks can lose before they die. Even if this means they rotate tanks and wait for the resting tank to regen, they will find the best way to heal their tanks and they will do it. In other words, we will have failed to remove healers; we will have created a game with lousy healers.
In designing Alganon, we decided we didn't want a game with lousy tanks, lousy healers, or lousy DPS. We decided instead to embrace the idea of healer/tank/DPS, and try to find ways to make this dynamic even more fun. This led to the design of the Frost Magus, a very non-traditional tank, but a tank none-the-less. It led to the design of the core Ranger class, a class that is designed specifically to control the game AI and use that to the advantage of the party. It led to the dual-role system that will allow players to always have a place in a party, no matter what classes are already in the group.
Embracing the trinity allows us to make a great game, and I can't wait to get it your hands, so that you can make it even better.
- Hue Henry, Lead Data Designer |
