ArenaNet has eschewed the classic tank/healer/damage trinity of MMOs for Guild Wars 2, and has embraced a multi-class mechanic, which the developer openly admits is inspired by Valve’s shooter Team Fortress 2.
Game designer Jon Peter’s defiantly rejects the support roles of traditional MMOs, stating, “I’m the anti-healer person. I don’t hate that people like to play support roles, it’s just that I want that role to be fun. I don’t think there’s any teamwork – what there is is just dependency.”
The developer used a sports analogy to describe the rigid mechanics of the traditional MMO trinity. “What if only forwards could score (in football). If there’s a shot and the goalkeeper doesn’t stop it, it has to go in – the defenders can’t kick it out. If you put in rules like that it’d be the most absurd game,” Peters mocked.
“I just detest dependency and the lack of teamwork it creates. It seems awfully silly to get people to play together and then not have them interact other than to say ‘are you doing your job?’, ‘Yes, I’m doing it.’,” he added.
Guild Wars 2 promises to make classes both organic and balanced, so that all players have something they can do that none of the others can, eliminating the tank/healer/damager strict roles. “No-one would tell you that everyone in Team Fortress just does damage,” Peters described. “No-one would say a Spy and a Heavy are the same because they both do damage – they’re very different playstyles. They have a very good sense of purpose.”
Peters went on to describe how a player could contribute to a party’s strategy. “I’m going to be a rifle turret engineer” he described, “and my sense of purpose is that (in PvP) I take capture points and I hold them. In dungeons I’m the guy who says, ‘fall back to me when we’re in trouble, and I’ll blow my turrets up and we’ll scatter.’”
He concluded, ”You develop that sense (of identity) with a playstyle rather than with a role.”
Guild Wars 2 is due to be released sometime in 2012 on PC.
