Personally speaking, I would like to be able to have multiple UI windows open (inventory, etc), as well as being able to see the world map at the same time. But the current UI setup doesn’t allow that. Not only that but the current UI setup for the worldmap has certain issues that could do with addressing:
TRANSITION FROM MAP VIEW TO CHARACTER VIEW
When the world map is closed by the player two things occur:
1) The map “recentres” itself on the players location.
2) When the map is opened, this is when the camera angle is altered to being near vertical. Consequently, when it’s closed, the camera angle is altered again, back to the angle it was originally at.
So this makes me wonder as to the purpose of these “transition effects”. Are they purely cosmetic? Or is there a technical reason for them:
1) Why does the map NEED to recentre itself on the player, if its actually being closed down.
2) Why has the camera angle changed at all just to open the map?
It just seems like the majority of this is unnecessary and sometimes causes “juddering” graphics problems when transitioning from “map view” to “character view” as the system is trying “redraw” things in the correct perspective.
NOTIFICATION OF ATTACK WHEN VIEWING THE MAP
Currently there is no visual indication that your character is being attacked whilst you view the map.
SUGGESTION:
Perhaps Anet should give players the option to choose in the settings from :
1) “Full Screen Map Mode”: Keeping with what we have now, as well as the option to disable the “transition effects” detailed above. Allowing players to disable this could help to slightly improve performance of the game on certain system configurations.
2) “Windowed Map Mode”: The map would be in its own UI “window” (like in other games). Looking like a flat map with perhaps “artistic” edges purely for cosmetic reasons. More importantly though, the map “window” would have the following attributes:
a) By default it would be smaller than the “full screen” resolution size (perhaps 75% of the screen resolution).
b) It would be adjustable in size (just like other UI elements are).
c) It would be movable around the screen (just like the other UI window elements in the game).
d) It would have a “zoom” facility, just like the “full screen” map version does now.
e) Maybe it’s “transparency” level could be altered, so players could keep it open and still see where they are going (just like in other games). Maybe such a “transparency” setting could be given to other UI elements too later on (such as the inventory window).
f) Because the map is in a window, no “transition effects” are required.
g) All of the above window settings (the position and size of the window in the game screen, the “zoom” level, the location which was last being looked at, should all be “remembered” by the UI system.
In both cases, I think that there should be some form of visual indicator (e.g. red border around the screen) which tells the player they are being attacked.
DROP DOWN LIST OF VISITED AREAS ON THE MAP
Sometimes you know of a place, but can’t remember exactly where it is. Perhaps there could be a drop down list of all locations that the player has visited shown on the map UI (both fullscreen and “Windowed Map” modes, that are primarily sorted by zone. And selecting a location from that list causes the map to show that surrounding (depending on the zoom level).
(edited by Tarkaroshe.8370)