Guild Wars 2

Neverwinter Nights and Smite both have an Emote system that I believe to be the best ever created.

It does not require any slash commands or clicking.

It simply has a single “root” keybinding, such as “v”.

You press “v”, and it displays various “subjects”, such as Exploration (e) or Social (s).
At this point, pressing one of the available keys, such as “e” for Exploration, will display options within that subject, such as “e” for “Check the surroundings”, or “f” for “I found something”

So if you press V-E-E in quick succession, you ask nearby players to check the surroundings. This can and will be easily done in a fraction of a second.

Pressing V at any time during this process cancels the Emote and returns your keybinds to their usual functions (such as targetting, combat, movement and panels).

It is so intuitive and easy to use and memorize emotes in this manner, that soon you use emotes instantly, withoutneeding to look or think, even between skills, during a jump, etc.
It truly becomes part of the gameplay and is awesome.
I recommend this to any RPG, MMO and otherwise.

ANet can IMPROVE such system by adding a variable – Shift.
Pressing V would perform the Emote on your target (John waves at Rambo.).
Pressing Shift+V would perform the Emote without target (John waves.).

I think this is a great idea. That / thing is super slow. If I wanna point, or kneel, or whatever, it takes a relatively long time to do. Your suggestion would allow for on the fly, quick emotes.

It would also allow the UI to expand emotes without having to have more words.

Nice idea!

Thanks, that’s exactly the point.
Any more comments?

Would really appreciate some more comments.
Added an improvement to the system, allowing you to decide whether to perform the Emote on your target, or without target.

I support this 100%

This message was brought to you by a Kitten with a Keyboard

I would support this.

But I would still personally prefer the option to be able to type the emote out. Sometimes, depending on the situation, I have the emote typed but I haven’t pressed enter yet just so I can time it perfectly… Like during one the vistas spoiler when cows are being thrown into the air, I had /laugh ready. It was just for fun.

Anyway, good idea!

I wrote something similar about “instant emotes” in combat… to support the “no trinity” system:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Dodging-Fast-Emotes-and-better-No-holy-trinity-group-work/first#post264742

Highly agree, great idea.

lookitsandrea.8531:

Sometimes, depending on the situation, I have the emote typed but I haven’t pressed enter yet just so I can time it perfectly…

That only happens because you have no other option than to type it, so you adapted.

But just test for yourself how fast you can type a 3 key sequence starting with V followed by any combination of 2 keys among:
QWER
ASDF
ZXC (V doesn’t count because it cancels the Emote sequence)

Now remove the need to press Enter (twice, once at the start and once at the end of the slash command)

You can click 3 keys near your left hand so fast it would be impossible not to get the perfect timing

Nurvus.2891:

lookitsandrea.8531:

Sometimes, depending on the situation, I have the emote typed but I haven’t pressed enter yet just so I can time it perfectly…

That only happens because you have no other option than to type it, so you adapted.

But just test for yourself how fast you can click V-E-E or V-E-W or any combination of V plus 2 other keys among: QWERASDFZXC
(V would cancel this)

You can click 3 keys near your left hand so fast it would be impossible not to get the perfect timing

I’m cool with the idea, but I think it would take a lot of getting used to for most players. I’ve been doing /dance for over 6 years. It’s certainly not a habit I’m personally going to be able to break easily. I also think ANet would have to slowly integrate this – by allowing both emotes to be used until people get used to the VE stuff.

Not sure. I really can’t say 100% yes unless I was able to use it in action. But being able to emote while in combat would be fun!

I’m telling you, when I played Neverwinter Nights, I was use to Diablo 2, and yet it took me like 1 week to become a “pro” at using over 10 different emotes.
I use them so fast, I didn’t even have to think about it. I’d use them BETWEEN abilities.

Unreal Tournament had this exact system in place…just sayin’ ;p

Nurvus.2891:

I’m telling you, when I played Neverwinter Nights, I was use to Diablo 2, and yet it took me like 1 week to become a “pro” at using over 10 different emotes.
I use them so fast, I didn’t even have to think about it. I’d use them BETWEEN abilities.

Well then I’d just trust ANet to use it in an easy way.

The goal is that the emote system itself is not server based, it’s as responsive as the Chat.

You click V just as you’d click Enter, and it “changes” the function of your other keys while in “Emote mode”.
Then you press 2 other keys, in the proper sequence, to produce the desired Emote, or you press V at any time to exit Emote mode.

It is meant to be super responsive, as the server does not need to receive each individual key strokes, but only the final “emote order”.

Scalyon.7028:

Unreal Tournament had this exact system in place…just sayin’ ;p

Didn’t play.
Good thing though.

It’s an amazing and intuitive system.
There is no reason for an MMORPG not to have it…

RP is meant to feel natural, therefore the less “pauses” you need to perform a proper emote, the better.

I’m liking this suggestion a lot too and shouldn’t be very hard to implement.
I’d also like seeing the GW1 emotes again (they are already used in GW2, since they don’t give any errors, just not implemented) plus a /kiss (throwkiss) emote should be very required for some players I believe. This is admittedly a LOT of animator work, but I think many players would appreciate it hugely.

I like the suggestion of easily accessible emotes without having to type out the entire emote.

I would prefer an emote system similar to the Titan Emote add-on in WoW which worked with Titan Bar. You would have one emote available at all times requiring one left mouse click and 14 other emotes on a drop down/up menu (using a right mouse click on the primary emote) requiring only one more left mouse click. All of the other emotes in the game were available using expanding panels from the same drop down menu (requiring left and right mouse clicks to access). A system using only a couple of mouse clicks and seeing what you are selecting on screen is much simpler than the need to memorize a new code. (I would be happy with the code suggested as I could learn the emotes I wanted, I would just prefer the Titan Emote system.)

IIRC LotRO also had some type of clickable menus showing emotes, though not as easy to use as Titan Emote.

I don’t see how you could prefer such a system, RLDragon.

Having to go through a drop down menu will never be as intuitive and seemless than just pressing V followed by a sequence of 2 other easily-reached keys (QWERASDFZXC) in a fraction of a second.

Just test it for yourself.
How quickly can you press (without needing to press Enter) a sequence of 3 keys starting with V, such as VEW or VSD

Speeder.6042:

I’m liking this suggestion a lot too and shouldn’t be very hard to implement.
I’d also like seeing the GW1 emotes again (they are already used in GW2, since they don’t give any errors, just not implemented) plus a /kiss (throwkiss) emote should be very required for some players I believe. This is admittedly a LOT of animator work, but I think many players would appreciate it hugely.

It’s also found in a game called Tribes, I believe.
It’s a very useful system.

Nurvus.2891:

It’s also found in a game called Tribes, I believe.
It’s a very useful system.

Yes, I remember playing the original Tribes way back when. My friends/family and I loved how easy it was to declare “Shazbot!” after being owned by a mortar or plasma turret or missing a “ski” jump only to fall to an untimely death. Fans also released voice packs that greatly expanded the number of options; hilarity ensued.

This is a situation where having a mod would solve it much faster than waiting for the developers to implement it.

Alas.

Anet put so much work into the emotes. Only to not make a quick and easy way for players to use the emotes.

I would use emotes all the time, if I didn’t have to type them.

Definitely needs to be some way of making emotes more easily accessible. I’m in support of this.

For any new player it must be a pain having to look up and type words every time.

Many Asian MMOs used an alt + letter (character) key combination system for emotes, (Ever played any of the Phantasy Star Onlines/Universes/Portables?) and there is still the option for /emote as well for our /me custom emote.

Well, the amount of characters you have access to with your left hand in a quick motion aren’t that many.

That’s why a sequence of 2-3 characters focused around the qwerasdfzxcv is best, as it provides MANY emotes accessible in a second.

Tribes flashbacks

Ah tribes, The greatest fps ever made.
Anyways yeah I played tribes for years and actually did some modding on this system. Having this in game especially in WvW and sPvP would greatly improve communication.

Like a few said the system uses an activate key (V was the key in tribes) then a context menu will appear that you can select what you want to say. veteran of the system would use it quick succession allowing them to communicate complicated information that would take much longer to type out.

Additionally the system was customizable through an ini file that allowed people to customize it to their needs.

If Anet does do this system I would be a great thing. My entire guild was founded in tribes and although our franchise has gone to the dogs. We still love the concepts that it started.

A few suggestions if they decide to take it up.
-Make it customizable, just a .ini file stored in gw2 folder is enough.
-Tie it into emotes, allow a quickchat to activate an emote and say or /me something.
-Tie them into a chat channel (90% go to say while those in glo
-Have chats for all game types.

Examples
vwq = Enemy army incoming!
vww = Push Forward!
vws = Pull back!
vwa = Go left!
vwse = Put a flame ram down here!
vcc = Help me capture the point.

Wonderful Idea, continue to allow the previous system to still be used of course for those who would wish to do so.

yes please. great idea.

Adeodatus.7625:

Wonderful Idea, continue to allow the previous system to still be used of course for those who would wish to do so.

Ofcourse.
It’d be awesome if ANet implemented this in GW2.

It somewhat amazes me that this system isn’t in most MMOs, to be honest.

Once one learns the codes this would be great. There needs to be something for people that can’t memorize letter strings after one viewing, though. So a mouse menu that brings up the various possibilities would help.

Fallen Earth had the most different emotes of any MMO I’ve played, and did it by category (for instance, clicking on Dance would open another window full of all the different dances. They had the Charleston. I loved them for that). But having to mouse navigate through all the windows was time consuming indeed; thus, getting some strings of letters down might be helpful as one learns the choices. LotRO unfortunately didn’t separate by type, so you got a giant list every time.

The game definitely needs a lot more emotes. Even old gamess like SWG had dozens more emotes than GW2 has.

I support any suggestions that would increase the amount of emotes in GW2.

Donari, I didn’t play Tribes, but I played Neverwinter Nights, wich had the same system.

Since it’s a client-side function, it can be quite instantaneous and highly responsive, much like the chat box when you press Enter.

Now, once you press V, it brings up a semi-transparent menu, saying something like:
E: Exploration
S: Social
F: Feelings
C: Combat

That kind of stuff.

Then when you press F, it can say:
C: Cry
G: Laugh

Wich means, whether you memorize or not, the information is right in front of you.

Wich is quite the opposite of what happens now – right now you must find out what works and what doesn’t by typing, and typing alot.