Curse

Tater_Knuts · Jan 12, 2006, 05:51 PM // 17:51

Over 1,200 hours of play I developed a list of things that would make the game better. This is no dashed-off ill-considered list of nerfs, buffs, or complaints. I think this is a very well thought out list of enhancements guaranteed to elicit at least one "that would be cool" from everyone. They're in no particular order. It's a long read, but I think it's well worth it.

There should be a key-binds for Zooming the camera. Laptops don't have mouse wheels; and it's frustrating to be stuck at the default zoom. And a key-bind for quickly resetting the camera to the default view.

There should be an option; perhaps as a check box in the 'Control Setup' menu; to have henchmen only attack called targets. If I'm playing as my Ranger, I want to call a target and have the henchmen attack that target, even if I switch targets; that way I can poison the entire enemy force, without having the henchmen run from target to target following my poison arrows. If I'm playing as my Mesmer, the henchmen can stay focused on the attack front while I disable the casters in the back.

This option should be extended to pets. You should be able to carry a set of skills to help your pet tank, and send him off to attack; letting your pet aggro and attack the enemy while you support him.

It would be great if the damage numbers for your pet could be differentiated by color or something. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between my damage and his.

Similarly, it would be nice to have critical hits highlighted when they happen; perhaps as a star burst or some other visual indicator around the damage number, and maybe have it stay on screen a bit longer.

It would be nice if the various UI components had a 'snap' attribute. If I change the size of the screen, I'd like the party list to stay snapped to the right side, instead of floating at an absolute position. This is somewhat of an annoyance when I play on different computers, or connect my laptop to an external monitor.

Just like you can toggle 'Local', 'Guild', etc in the chat window, it would be nice if you could toggle the 'console' chatter; 'x dropped z', 'y picked up z', etc. It obvious that there is a buffer, it would be nice to be able to expand that buffer; I've got plenty of memory in my computer. I find if I'm in a long mission, some Guild chatter gets buried in the console chatter, or gets pushed out the other end of the buffer.

Oh, and maybe add the option to have ' signed on|off' console messages. Definitely optional.

You should be able to re-order your skills in your bar in the field. Everyone hates accidentally swapping two skills into unfamiliar positions, and then being stuck with that during a mission. Maybe click and drag, with a high drag threshold to prevent accidents. For keyboard, maybe Ctrl-Alt-# then # of new position. So Ctrl-Alt-1 then 2, would swap the skills in slot 1 and 2.

You should not be able to sell equipment that's in a Weapon Slot, or at least not without confirmation. I've lost 2 really nice weapons through over-zealous clicking. Right now, you're only prevented from selling a weapon that is equipped. Bonus: Have an 'Undo' option for the Merchant!

There should be 'Build Slots' analogous to Weapon Slots. For my Mesmer I have a solo build, a melee build, and an anti-caster build. It would be fantastic to just be able to pick a skill set from my predefined slots and go, without spending a couple minutes dragging and dropping only to figure out a few minutes into the mission that I forgot to take points out of attribute X and put them in attribute Y or picked a skill with a similar icon, not the one I wanted. Bonus: The skills you don't have when you switch your build slot fill in correctly when you change to the correct secondary profession. Perhaps the skill icons show, but are grayed to indicate the incorrect profession is active.
[I've heard this is coming, I included it just to suggest details of it's workings]

It would be nice to be able to right-click a persons name in the chat window, and quick 'target' that person; just like when you left-click on the actual person. Then you could just right-click a person in chat, and click on the invite button on the party window; instead of either typing their name; and misspelling it; or laboriously selecting, copying, and pasting. Maybe a right-click and hold could pop up a context menu, with 'Go To|Invite|Add to Friends|Ignore' to similarly speed things up.

Just as valuable as Control-clicking; or it's keyboard equivalent; on your energy bar to announce your energy level to the team, would be the ability to Alt-click on a skill; or press Alt-#; to announce it's remaining recharge time. If some skill is important for the next group of enemies, but has a slow recharge, it would be nice to quickly inform your team you'd like to wait for that skill to recharge before engaging the enemy. For example, "Mix Meow: Backfire needs x more seconds to recharge." This idea could be extended to the health and energy bars; "Mix Meow: I need x more seconds for full energy|health." This is a little more helpful than announcing your energy level, since the party can generally plan the next engagement based on that time instead of guessing or waiting for you to announce your energy is fully recharged. I realize that sometimes those calculations might be a bit complex... depending on current conditions/hexes, etc; but a close estimate shouldn't be too hard.

It would be fun to have a user-defined battle cry, or maybe more than one. This would appear on the screen, but not in chat; like 'shouts' do now. It would need a key-bind to be most useful. I always wanted to shout "Fear teh pink magik!" whenever I launched a Chaos Storm. I know it's silly. We're supposed to be having fun, right?

While I'm on silly things: It would be cool to have a '/pose' emote for screen shots or other general silliness. For example, a group of Rangers could all emote '/pose * 1', and they would all, in perfect synchronization, go through the motions of executing the skill in slot #1. Now they'd all be in action poses with their bows drawn (most likely) and ready for a cool group shot; maybe in front of the boss they just took down. The action would have to be slowed down or paused briefly at it's apex so you could get the maximum effect. And the apex of this silliness? Chat/emote rate limits could be removed/raised in your own guild hall, allowing you to choreograph your own dance using existing emotes and 'skill poses'. Wow. That's pretty damn silly... but prolly pretty fun. I can't wait for the movies!

The times I've sought to buy something, the stuff in the trade channel whizzed by so fast it was difficult to find what I was looking for. It would be great to have the ability to filter the channel by keyword; if you're looking for a sword, set a filter, you will only see lines containing the word 'sword'. Once again, the previously mentioned ability to right-click a name in the rapid scrolling window will come in handy here, too.

The Ranger 'Healing Spring' spell should have a visible area; perhaps like a light-blue version of a Necromancer 'well'. Most people don't know that Rangers have an area heal spell, and when it's cast it's not readily apparent. Unless you tell people, or they know, most people won't know to move into, or not move out of, the area of effect.

The various Ranger shouts should appear in the 'Effect Monitor' area when active, just like shouts do for Warriors. With some durations like 120 seconds, it's hard to keep track of when you need to redo the shout.

It would be nice if there was a reward for getting every skill and capturing every elite for your primary profession; other than the sense of accomplishment. Let's say you acquire your last skill or capture your last elite, or; having somehow done that before reaching level 20; when you reach level 20; a quest is automatically added to your log. You have to go to TOA to kneel at the appropriate statue. You talk to the avatar, and receive as a reward a special permanent blessing for having achieved the highest level in your profession. This blessing would only be active when your skill bar has only primary profession skills in it, and you're not in an arena. This blessing could take the form of either a +2-5% morale boost, or +1(100% or 20% chance) attribute boost, or something else along those lines. Bonus: As a subtle acknowledgment of this state in game, perhaps your official class designation would temporarily be (using Ranger as an example) 'Master Ranger'; instead of your class appearing as R/X20, it would appear as '*R20', where the '*' would be some sort of symbol.

The various sort order heading in your skills list should be collapsible, like the quest log is. If you're never going to use Beast Mastery skills, it would be nice to be able to collapse that heading so the skills under it are not shown; but if you switched to order by 'Type', they would show. So each sort order would have to remember which headings were collapsed in it's view. Bonus: Remember which headings were collapsed on secondary profession attributes when you change your secondary.

You should be able to use yourself or allies as targets of AoE spells. If the healer is getting attacked, I should be able to target the healer and summon a Chaos Storm centered on him to drive the enemies away. Bonus: Ability to use any point on the ground as the target of an AoE spell.

If I'm in a town or outpost, once I've found a team I tend to disable Local chat. I've found a few times that some people continue to use Local chat in the mission, instead of Team chat, and I'm missing the conversation. Maybe the "No one can hear you." message should be displayed when you use Local during a mission/quest, or change it to "Use team chat.", or even have Local and Team use a common buffer so it doesn't matter.

You should be able to start the Guild Wars client with command line arguments. Suggestions:
/offline - As you log in, your status is set 'Offline'. Perfect if your boss also plays.
/maximize - Open windowed, with the maximum window size.
/minimize - Not sure why, but just for completeness.
/window - Open windowed, defaults to last non-maximized size.
/800x600 - Open full-screen at specified resolution.
/display n - Open on display n on a multi-monitor system.
These should just override whatever is configured, without changing the configuration.

Diablo™ · Jan 12, 2006, 06:06 PM // 18:06

All very good suggestions.

I would also add a LFG button, a little "looking for group" Icon may appear above the head of the group that is recruiting.

And a tiny energy bar below the health bar in the party window.

Kakumei · Jan 12, 2006, 06:13 PM // 18:13

You're wrong in your assumption that none of these have been seen before--pretty much all of them are common requests.

Good ones, mind you, just common.

Sol_Vie · Jan 12, 2006, 06:16 PM // 18:16

I agree with you about the laptop thing because sometimes I play on my gf's laptop and it's really annoying. However, you can zoom/unzoom. Just click both the right and left mouse buttons at once and move (what would be) the arrow back and you'll zoom out. Might take a few tries.

xxSilhouette · Jan 12, 2006, 06:48 PM // 18:48

have you ever considered getting a mouse for you laptop? I have a laptop and for example if i want to lay in bed and play, i take a hardback book and put my mousepad and mouse on that and i can do all of the zooming just the same, just a suggestion

Zilm · Jan 12, 2006, 09:53 PM // 21:53

I agree with nearly all of your suggestions. Time will tell.

Shut Your Mouth · Jan 12, 2006, 10:32 PM // 22:32

The Party concensus/vote to kick a player ! Now that's an option I have been looking for since day 1. I'm sure we all have been in a group with one just plain undesirable player. Most common in my experience due to flaming or
Free ride players that just join a group and go afk for the whole quest/mission.
It should take a KICK PLAYER vote by ALL other party members to kick 1 player from a party. I'm sure this will not happen due to the pure abuse or exploit of this option that would insue.

esac · Jan 12, 2006, 10:43 PM // 22:43

To add onto a list of ideas that have probably been posted before, but might be nice to re-iterate them:
* Seeing the actual health and energy of party members rather than (or imposed on top of) the progress bar. As a healer, I know my healing spell will heal for 83 health. But for one character that is 1/3rd of the health bar, and for another that is 1/6th of the health bar. I just want to know when they are down ~80 hps.
* Selecting items on the ground with a keyboard. Again as a laptop player I hate to use the mouse, but I have to in order to pick up an item. Let's assign the ; key to select an item, hit multiple times to alternate to the next items. (wasn't ; a key in the beta) ??

antialias02 · Jan 13, 2006, 12:13 AM // 00:13

I agree... good suggestions. But by no means new. I approve.

Meneldil · Jan 13, 2006, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tater_Knuts

The Ranger 'Healing Spring' spell should have a visible area; perhaps like a light-blue version of a Necromancer 'well'. Most people don't know that Rangers have an area heal spell, and when it's cast it's not readily apparent. Unless you tell people, or they know, most people won't know to move into, or not move out of, the area of effect.

I took your ranger suggestion and added it to my list of ranger suggestions in my thread called "A Collection of Ranger Suggestions"

Thanks for the suggestion.

Shut Your Mouth · Jan 13, 2006, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diablo™

All very good suggestions.

I would also add a LFG button, a little "looking for group" Icon may appear above the head of the group that is recruiting.

And a tiny energy bar below the health bar in the party window.

I totally agree with the LFG button, maybe add a LFG chat tab.

Wrath Of Dragons · Jan 13, 2006, 06:33 PM // 18:33

good ideas

Digitalblast · Jan 13, 2006, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Yes, heard many of them before but agree with them all none the less. To add with this:

Quote:

If I'm in a town or outpost, once I've found a team I tend to disable Local chat. I've found a few times that some people continue to use Local chat in the mission, instead of Team chat, and I'm missing the conversation.

How about just default team on always when outside a town. You also should only have three chat options, Guild and Team and Wisper. Wtf do we need a trade channel when were on a mission. Ya think someone will spam the trade channel trying to sell thier leet chaos axe while on a mission. Didnt think so either.

disarm76 · Jan 15, 2006, 07:50 AM // 07:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tater_Knuts

It would be nice if there was a reward for getting every skill and capturing every elite for your primary profession; other than the sense of accomplishment. Let's say you acquire your last skill or capture your last elite, or; having somehow done that before reaching level 20; when you reach level 20; a quest is automatically added to your log. You have to go to TOA to kneel at the appropriate statue. You talk to the avatar, and receive as a reward a special permanent blessing for having achieved the highest level in your profession. This blessing would only be active when your skill bar has only primary profession skills in it, and you're not in an arena. This blessing could take the form of either a +2-5% morale boost, or +1(100% or 20% chance) attribute boost, or something else along those lines. Bonus: As a subtle acknowledgment of this state in game, perhaps your official class designation would temporarily be (using Ranger as an example) 'Master Ranger'; instead of your class appearing as R/X20, it would appear as '*R20', where the '*' would be some sort of symbol.

Yeah, why PvP gets /rank and PvE gets nothing like it?
And why not Little symbols for Ascended, Infused, Game finished, All bonus, etc..

TheLordOfBlah · Jan 16, 2006, 02:09 AM // 02:09

"The Ranger 'Healing Spring' spell should have a visible area; perhaps like a light-blue version of a Necromancer 'well'. Most people don't know that Rangers have an area heal spell, and when it's cast it's not readily apparent. Unless you tell people, or they know, most people won't know to move into, or not move out of, the area of effect."

Many other AoE spells should have some kind of indicator. I agree with nearly everything.

Kool Pajamas · Jan 16, 2006, 04:54 AM // 04:54

My laptop has a scroll, I can zoom in and out easy.

Valdaran Longfoot · Jan 17, 2006, 05:49 AM // 05:49

I like the ideas. My laptop has a scroll but I can understand the fustration of that. /pose is cool, and I REALLY like the LFG button.

As to the other things like sell back its all part of the game. I know it sucks but stuff happens and you move on or give up. :P

The skill during mission thing would probly be abused so that you have the PERFECT skill for everything that happens. "Oh I have a hex on me w/o remove hex. *swiches skills, uses it* Problem solved." That would make it WAY too easy, monks could remove about 4-5 hexes depending on their second class and still have energy to heal. Ya it might take a bit of time, but classes like mesmer and necromancers will not be very good with one monk on the other team swiching out skills to remove all the hexes that you cast.

Mandy Memory · Jan 17, 2006, 05:53 AM // 05:53

They are good suggestions (at least most of them) but I have seen them all before and they arent the best suggestions ever. Stop thinking youre special.