What are good alternatives to the Holy Trinity in RPGs?

The holy unity. Make it so that I can do everything and other people don't matter.

Crowd controller, Beast master/add maker, Necro/debuffer

God I miss Requiem: Bloodymare

Everyone's primary role is damage dealing
Everyone gets abilities to mitigate damage
Encounters are a footie match where aggro switches between people and you have to be ready to take aggro
Abilities work in combination with other players' abilities
If you still want some traditional adherence, you offer ability/talent trees that allow some customization toward mitigating damage for other people, enhancing your damage capabilities, holding aggro longer/swapping it with more control, or giving people buffs at certain key moments, but for the most part you are still expected to be prepared to do one of several things depending on the moment and scenario.

if you guys like healing in an mmo, play healer's quest. it's actually amazing

The trinity doesn't need to be broken, the problem is that all the tanks, healers, and DPS are the same. Each group needs classes that are different from each other with their own roles.

Support, Crowd Control

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>Most damage from bosses in the Soul series are avoidable and thus you don't have to worry about healing.
That works for an action RPG but not for turn based.

All DPS but everyone has unique support abilities.

Healers are playing a different game from the rest, which causes dissonance in gameplay. Even in the high end, healers spend most of the time DPSing or raids are bring less healers because it's a zero-sum game. It also has less agency; yes you have to keep everyone alive but there are very little situations when you truly stand out (at most you just mop up other people's mistakes).

Tanking has been braindead since 2010 and specially died with taunt-swapping being prominent in every game. Just have adds/bosses attack the first target and then switch to someone else every 20 secs or something. This way everyone has to do tank/positioning mechanics at some point.

The FPS Four Temperaments w/ Vehicle Trinity
Assault (May have anti-tank ability, or be the ammo guy)
Combat Medic (Picking up fallen allies as a focus instead of constantly healing)
Engineer (Repairs, may also be the ammo guy, or have full tank/anti-tank focus)
Sniper

Transport (Jeep, APC with relatively effective anti-air ability)
Tank
Helicopter

Sounds like a working version of SAO

Guild Wars 2 did literally all this and it was GARBAGE boring shit

Everquest did it well. It had your traditional DPS/Tank/Healer trinity, but it also had classes like Bard, Enchanter, and Shaman who were at times invaluable to making a successful, effective group.
Well, maybe not Shaman. But definitely Bard and Enchanters.

Lots of games do this if you think about it, virtually every co-op multiplayer game. Ala something like Dark Souls technically does that when playing co-op, or even Destiny like said. By extension, Warframe, The Division and Anthem are in the same boat. I prefer it this way as opposed to the holy trinity, since it allows for more complicated and engaging mechanics for bosses and flexibility between the players.

Hell, even something like co-op in regular shooters Gears of War is what you describe.

Self-healing can work for turn-based as well, though. It all depends on how the game's combat is designed.

Self healing tends to be pretty boring

why is dps the hardest?

just make every move avoidable and you don't need a dedicated healer or tank which frees up roles and lets people do what they'd prefer to do instead of what the game tells you you need to do
forced damage soaking does nothing but lead to dedicated, required roles and stagnant gameplay where you just stand around and cast until a red circle shows up under your feet
the mmo genre needs a lot of work

Designing around classes

here's the real question... slow big single heals, small fast little heals, or heals over time?

Tank
Damage
Offensive support (Debuffs Enemies, Low damage combo effects like damage and slow, DOTs, Soft CC)
Defensive Support(Buffs Allies, Heals, Shields, Resistance Buffs, Hard CC)

This would devolve into the trinity as groups discover any method that allow 1-3 people to hold aggro. You would be removing healers at best.

And having a dedicated healing class is more fun, because...? Would Monster Hunter be more fun with a dedicated healing class?

it sure seems like it is considering how bad all of them are

If you make healing something everyone does, you can make the trinity tank, dps, control.

Or, as the video game industry does, DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS.

Kind of? You don't really get the feeling of "roles" like that in Monster Hunter.

I haven't played MH so I don't know, but in general have at least the flavor of having a dedicated healer than letting everyone do it and losing character in the process.
It feels very generic, a good comparison is modern WoW with vanilla.

at least that would require a healthy amount of thought and planning instead of the game straight up telling you "durr bring these 3 types of guys if you want to win because we designed the entire game specifically around them"

Breaking things down to fundamentals...
>DPS only.
Its a game of war, which the highest numbers win.
Because of this, you either change up the gameplay with skill (such as action combat) or you go to the next type;

>Offensive and Defensive
By having healers, you ping pong your HP bars, and fights bounce around in dangerous moments, and opportunities for you to strike.

The fact we split from 2 roles, to 3 roles (sometimes 4 roles) stems from very specific misunderstandings of circumstances/coincidences.

Tanks and Healers are, at a fundamental level, the same role.
They are under the same base category, but with different sub categories.
Its similar to how a melee DPS and a ranged caster DPS are considered the same role, but a different sub type.

Tanks and Healers jobs, are to make sure the fight is more than a DPS race. To be part of what makes fights bounce back and forth, rather than a straight "My numbers are higher, now we sit back and wait for the fight to end".
(Of course newer MMOs try to incorporate other mechanics, such as dodging, or teamwork, independent of roles, so its less automated like this.)

>To answer OPs question
To answer, let me paint a picture, and once its painted, you'll understand what are the 2 factors that you need to deal with.
The 2 factors are;
>Threat system, prioritizing targets based on threat
>Stat/ability/gear customization/specialization
These 2 factors are what created the trinity, and it wouldnt exist today, if it werent for these two.

Lets make a new tab target MMO, where everyone acts on a 1 second GCD. (All bosses auto attack every 1 second)
1st, you need to decide how enemies prioritize which target to attack.
If you do "random target" you need everyone able to survive the bosses attacks, and it plays out like a JRPG (Like the final fantasy series)
Another alternative is turn/grid based RPGs, where targets are primarily based on distance. Targeting the nearest target. (other secondary things-

>lets make a new tab target MMO
no thank you, I'd like a skill cap beyond casting spells in the best order

(other secondary things such as targets lower in HP as well)
Then in PvP, the ability to make decisions on the fly, based on what is being an actual problem for you at the moment. (Or which target would be beneficial to focus down 1st) This would be a true intelligence based targeting system.
In order to mimic the above, with the least amount of work, MMOs picked a system based on who's effectiveness/potency is helping their group the most.
Transferred into "threat".

This was when players realized random "Tom" in the raid group, was getting hit more.
Tom could gear more defensivly, through choosing stat/gear changes, and in turn, generated less threat, and the gear became pointless.
Outside of AoEs, bosses only hit one target.
Only one player can actually see any benefit to defensive gear/stats.
Players started to let the "tank" run in and get hate, and waited to start DPSing the boss.
Sometimes certain classes could taunt for a few seconds of being focused down, or other party members could lower their threat, or grant threat to others.

Eventual MMOs later gave more tools for threat control to tanks, until we're at todays standard, where its nearly always the "tanks" job.
"Threat" doesnt have to be tied to an offensive role, or defensive role.
You can argue it reflects either, if your really want to break it down.

Because its a unique feature, not related to your role, the current day tank was regulated to "threat control" so as to distinguish it from healers.

BUT
What if MMOs decided threat differently? As a hypothetical, lets go back to my prior statement about GCDs per second, and say ONLY healer and DPS exist.
But, unlike the random style, what if a target focuses on the 1st target it gets aggro on. Who ever runs into aggro range, is 1st on the list, followed by who ever was 2nd, etc. If the person 1st on the list dies, it switches to 2nd place.

This system doesnt require a dedicated "role" to controlling threat (not that it ever

Literally no one wants to play healer/tank retard. That's why modern games are getting rid of them.

Limited strong heals, slightly more abundant but still limited minor heals per battle.
ie D&D style where healing is there to save yourself or your allies to stave off death, not MMO-like where you're keeping everyone topped off. Most fights should be short and decided upon tactically, not drawn out battles of attrition where you are always trading largely unavoidable damage. Fights that are like a routine tug of war with the health bars as the rope is retarded.

If it is implemented like reloading a gun in a shooter (which many shooters recently are doing), self-heal can be plenty engaging, tense and tactical - it should take some time and you're vulnerable while doing it, meaning you need to place yourself somewhere safe while healing.

There is none, You'll end up with Tanky DPS that have healing sooner or later. There is no "other" way. Quit looking at the triangle and think "specialization" instead. Everything has that in life.

(not that it ever mattered which role did it)

This is for explaining, not because people want it or not.

Because this system has no actions deciding threat control, or stats, just who walks into range 1st, any DPS or healer can "tank". (unless you make their stats different.) Lets pretend only melee DPS exist, for keeping this example simple.

a group of 20 players.
18 are DPS, and 2 are healers.
everyones HP is 100
Boss does 100 damage per second.
Healers heal 50 hp per GCD(second)

in this example, both healers healing 50hp (x2=100) is enough healing to cancel out the damage of the boss.

Now, lets also say the only gear in the game is an accessory.
And the only stats are;
>Power
(magical, healing, or physical, doesnt matter)
>HP
>MP
everyone has 100hp, so no one can survive a hit, so one person gets HP. The rest of the party doesnt need HP, so the rest of the party picks power.
As long as the tank has 1 HP more, the healers can keep this player alive.

This is how most tanks are designed.
A DPS with slightly more defense/HP.

But once u add abilities, and more so, defensive abilities, like cool downs to mitigate 50% of the damage you take, they shift from a DPS, to a hybrid offensive/defensive player.
Most of the offensive behavior is both because it attracts players, and because its used for threat.

But how about we look at a healer who doesnt heal HP, but grants defenses?
Such as granting shields, mitigations, defenses, or buffs that negate damage?

Most healers have some sort of shielding option to grant players, its just really weak.
All tanks have mtigations to lower boss dmg, but its very potent by comparison, but only targets themselves.

So, now, think of tanks like this;
What if we made a healer, who could ONLY target themselves, but heals for 75hp per GCD?
What if other healers, who can target anyone they want, were nerfed to only heal 25 hp per GCD, to balance this?

You'd have a self healer, and a party healer in a group.
by doing this, you also increase your DPS, since one DPS doesnt need to gear up with "HP" instead of "power".

your self healer will be healed every GCD by 100.

This is what tanks are like now with mitigation, in comparison to healers.
and in some cases, some tanks self heal in a similar manner, but with far lower potency.

Healers and Tanks are really meant to function as the ping pong "defense" role.
But have become separated like Physical ranged DPS, Ranged caster DPS, pet DPS, melee DPS, support DPS, etc.

The real question OP, is how do we make an alternative, when games fundamentally use certain core mechanics? such as attack, HP, threat, etc?
You'd need to make an entirely new system, that even removes basics, or turn towards more action/other genre, like even racing, or what ever genre.

>no one in this thread played Mabinogi
the holy trinity ruined mmorpgs

>Mabinogi
Elaborate user?

The Fighter/Mage/Thief multi solo who can do everything at once

melee and ranged

word
>>Support, Crowd Control
the actual answer

I was about to argue how this is wrong, but then i remembered the OPs question was alternatives, and just making healers into support, and tanks into CCs is what the OP wanted. An alternative version of healer/tanking.

unless of course u also mean no DPS, which would be interesting.

I like pet parties. FFXI had the best ones, either with SMNs, BSTs, or PUPs (the best pet class in an MMO ever).

PUPs!

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you need dedicated roles that have things the other roles cant do so brainlets can feel useful. If you have skill based pvp then you end up with a handful of people shitstomping everyone else, and then those shitstopped losers fuck off to another game because they dont like losing all day long due to their own lack of skill. Its the exact same reason most online games are 'team' based. When you are on a 'team', you can blame everyone else for your failures. The whole reason battle royal is big dollars is because its basically the dark souls of fps games. It's hard, it rewards individual skill, and people are subconsciously desperate to prove that they arent a worthless unskilled piece of shit.