Guild Wars 2

Since the GW2 team is currently focusing on improving the core game, I thought of something that could really use an update. The current combat log is almost useless and gives pretty much no helpful information other than damage.

1st idea
Some things that the Combat Log should display:

-Your damage output
-Your healing output to x ally
-Conditions you have removed from x ally
-Conditions removed from you by x ally
-Boons given to x ally

These are just a few things that should be in the combat log IMO. Obviously, there could be many more but lets not get crazy yet. In addition to the CL, the UI should be updated as well to let you know how you are affecting the battle and how others are affecting you. For example, many times I have been doing world events about to die, when a brave soul will heal me for half my health and remove some conditions. Every time this happens, I ask who it was to thank them because, well its awesome. It would be great to have the player name show up next to the healing amount above your character’s head so you know who is consistently healing you. This could even go in the combat log, along with who removed conditions from you, but having it on the HUD would be very nice.

2nd idea

For people who are against cluttering the HUD and do not want to have such specific numbers in the Combat Log for whatever reason, I propose an after action report.

Let’s say you are in a dungeon. Everything is going fine because you have enough damage to kill all the baddies and everyone is healing themselves/each other in a timely manner. When you down the final boss and get your reward, an after action report would be generated that could display the following:

-Player who dealt Most Damage
-Player who did most healing
-Player who removed most conditions
-Player who provided the most buffs

Again, this is just a simple example (you could get very specific with the reports, but I do not know how complicated it would be or if Anet’s systems could support it).

Personally, I like knowing how I’m doing in MMOs. I want to know how I am helping my group and what they are doing to help me! It’s great when you know that somebody helped you in a dungeon when you can go “Hey Bob, that was some really clutch condi removal”, or “Great heals Joe” and can really build some team spirit. Many people are against DPS counters (with good reason!) and I feel some sort of system like this can let people know how they are playing without the game turning into kitten, top dps spam.

TL;DR: GW2 needs a refined combat log with more detailed information. After action reports could be generated to let players know how they fared in battle, without the need for a dps/hps meter that many people dread.

even though i can agree in some parts, a window after a dungeon showing some results may lead to exclude some people to run the same dungeon in some way in the future or even asking before the dungeon to enter with a certain build to fill better the formentioned window…
some classes can be even more excluded in content just because some people misunderstood numbers.

and number misunderstanding seems very common, just look at the threads about celestial stats and see how people completely messed up the maths

Amadan.9451:

even though i can agree in some parts, a window after a dungeon showing some results may lead to exclude some people to run the same dungeon in some way in the future or even asking before the dungeon to enter with a certain build to fill better the formentioned window…
some classes can be even more excluded in content just because some people misunderstood numbers.

and number misunderstanding seems very common, just look at the threads about celestial stats and see how people completely messed up the maths

Yes that’s a good point, but if there weren’t any specific numbers it wouldn’t be too exclusive. If the page just said “(Top Damage – (Player Name))” I don’t think anyone could rightfully exclude another player because they still do not know their actual DPS. Maybe it could be like a top 3 sort of thing.

can be a solution, but it still feels competitive rather than cooperative.
but yes there are definitely some differences when you run a dungeon with certain classes in stead of others and with experience you even may notice where the difference was 8usually the lack of a guardian is the one i notice more).
but yeah, for all the boon i apply and regeneration, even if i play a mesmer, some recognition would be nice^^