Guild Wars 2

Dear ArenaNet,

with all the changes being made to the game now, and with what seems like more resources available on your part, I wanted to take the time to point out a couple of Quality of Life fixes to make gameplay more enjoyable. I also wanted to point out a couple aspects of the game that I feel are questionable, and some that I entirely disagree with. These have probably been mentioned more than a couple times already, but a consolidated list might be helpful. If someone has an issue with one of my points, please read the ENTIRE paragraph and point before getting your jimmies rustled. I try my best to put in counterclaims and counterarguments. If you still have something to say, feel free! Community input is appreciated. (Disclaimer: I am relatively new to the game, but have invested a fair amount of time into it, and feel I have a reasonable grasp on much of it, ~400 hours.)
[Second Disclaimer. This post is LONG. There are a lot of points, counterpoints, and a bunch of topics I bring up. Be prepared for a long read. I would suggest scanning the first few words to see what that point is about. Then, if you are interested in a particular topic, read that paragraph, and skip the ones you don’t care about. Also, if you read the whole thing, you’re a cool cat.]

Let me preface this by saying that you guys have made great innovations in many areas, which makes it hard to believe that some other areas seem so unpolished, the biggest offender of which is probably the UI.
User Interface. Action bars, maps, bags.

One is the lack of customization available. I also want to split this into three subsections: Quality of Life (QoL) changes that can’t hurt the game, Potential changes (PotCh) that may or may not hurt, and more Fundamental changes (FunCh) that I feel help the game but may go against its design philosophy.

-QoL: Action bars, target frame isn’t moveable. This is simply player preference here. I see some arguments about how this would grant advantages to players who downsized on information, and frankly it’s really dumb. You’re going to have an advantage if you have a bigger monitor; not implementing this for fear of an unfair advantage is just paranoia. That being said, the Action bars are very clean, and this would rank Very Low on the priority list.

-QoL: Countdown timers with numbers. They are available on personal skills, but not on buffs and debuffs. Not such a big problem, as there are the white outline timers, but a small annoyance with long term buffs like Nourishment. But Paladine, you might say, the icons are too small to put numbers with! Well, again, that’s UI customization. A scaling slider for buffs/debuffs would be handy. Or just put the same outline timer on Nourishment. Really, that’s all I’m after. When do I eat more foods?! Priority: Very Low.

-QoL: No party leader indicator. The issue here, of course, would be that a de facto “leader” of a party shouldn’t have an inherent and unfounded position of power just by forming the group. But the problem isn’t that, it’s that dungeon instances have a “host” of sorts, aka the party leader. If he leaves the dungeon for an emergency, everybody gets kicked out and loses all progress. A small indicator is needed to let us know who will reset the instance if he leaves. Secondly, to make sure that progress isn’t lost in case of emergency, a manual, or preferably automatic, “pass party leader” option should be available to keep this from being a massive pain. Priority: Moderately High.

-QoL: Updated AoE markers. Some bosses (I’m looking at you Giganticus Lupicus) have inaccurate AoE markers, making a frustrating and pointless death. Please fix. Priority: Very High.

-QoL: Confirmation Message Suppressions. Let us set our own threshold of which items trigger a, “Are you sure you wanna do this?”. Salvaging greens takes forever because of it. Alternatively, for salvaging, don’t make it so that clicking “yes” or “no” gets rid of the salvage cursor. Additionally, let us buy multiple items from a vendor. Buying 250 dragonfly cupcakes? Be prepared to spend 5 minutes clicking. Just have the confirmation window say, Are you sure you want to spend X currency on Y items. Priority: Moderately High.

-QoL: Option to always enable Environmental Object view. Currently you can toggle on, Always See Enemy Names, and Friendly names, but there’s no way to toggle always see yellow item names. Strangely, there’s a keybind for it (default control.) I don’t see why we can’t have that always on.* Priority: Moderate*

-QoL: Dungeon tokens. They shouldn’t take up inventory space. On a similar note, miniatures should fall under here too. WoW had a very clean, convenient change where you ended up having a separate tab for tokens, and they acted as currency that didn’t take up bag space. I can see why you have them take up space though, so players will buy bag slots with gems. Understandable. Just a pain for us players. Unsure what to do here, too torn with me being a pack rat. Priority: Moderately low.(ADDENDUM: I am okay with collectibles tab only housing 250 of a specific item. It helps keeps items in the trading post, and prevents the economy from stagnating. Good system here, nice balance of deposits and forcing bag slots onto players.)

-PotCh: Somewhat related from previous part, there’s no such thing as a secondary target, only a singular target shared by the entire party that can be controlled by everybody. An uncooperative team member, or just an inexperienced one, may keep calling out the wrong target to kill. Have the party leader have his own target icon, and the other 4 have theirs. Different colors will suffice. I would also prefer raid target icons, eg kill this target first and this second, but that extra try-hard elitism may go against design philosophy, so I won’t push the point, even if I somewhat disagree. Priority: Moderately Low.

-FunCh: No focus frames. This is nice for keeping tabs on a secondary target’s hp, buffs and debuffs. Perhaps not so strictly necessary in PvE, but very handy in PvP. Perhaps you guys want to keep this relatively casual and fun. Understandable, except there are big PvP tournaments, which is strange to me. It would add clutter to the screen, meaning some people wouldn’t use it, and it would put them at a disadvantage. I can see that point, so it’s only just perhaps something worth considering. Completely understandable why it wouldn’t be put in.* Priority: Moderately Low.*

-FunCh: No target of target. Not necessary to show target of target for players, but it would be helpful to see who an enemy is targeting. Sometimes players are stacked and it’s hard to know who it’s gunning for. Other times, bosses have deadly skills that you need to dodge, but it’s also hard to see who he’s aiming for, eg Volcanic Fractals boss with high Agony damage, or CoE story mode boss. Has the same issues as with focus frames (clutter). Design philosophy may be that it adds challenge and difficulty to the game, but this seems to be flawed game design. Artificially adding challenge through a deliberate lack of information is not only extremely unsatisfying, it’s also pointless. Facilitating player skill at avoiding damage with the very well-implemented dodge roll makes us players happy that we’re performing well and not being frustrated by being unable to see the boss because it’s burning at that moment, covered in flames and whirling blades. Priority: Very high.

-QoL: Bag organization. It sucks. You guys have such a great system in place for a lot of it. Remote collectibles deposit, auto compact, safe slots, armor bags, etc. But your Invisible Bags don’t take into account 2 hand to dual-wield swapping. (Putting on a 3rd, or 4th, or 5th weapon set, not just utilizing the in-combat weapon swap system. Which is neat by the way!) If I have a Greatsword on, and have to put on dual axes from the hero panel, now there’s an empty slot. I loot something, it fills the slot (My invisible bag is the second bag, so it gets filled up first). I swap back to Greatsword. Now one of my axes is in the Invisible Bag, the other isn’t. I accidentally vendor the axe. (It happens.) Eventually it’ll get horribly disorganized and you wonder why you bothered with it. Solutions: Let players assign gear to certain inventory slots (complicated.) Make invisible bags fill up last, and prioritize filling it with weapons you unequip. (Hacky, but easy.) You guys are better designers than me I’m sure, I’m willing to bet you guys can find an elegant solution. (Or just use mine! I don’t mind!) Priority: Moderately High.

-QoL: Gear sorting. Somewhat in line with the previous suggestion. When you open the hero panel where the gear is, have an option to sort everything in it by category, instead of roughly following inventory order. Sort by gear, reverse sort by gear. Have a default sort, the way it is now. A gear sort: Weapons first, Armor second, Gems, runes, sigils last. Rarity sort: Legendaries first, ascended next, exotics, rares, etc. That’ll help us out with mutable inventory and stuff moving around on item sell, banking, and equipping.* Priority: Moderate.*

Social improvements. Friends, guild, etc. Kind of in line with UI.

-QoL: Friend notes: Why do we not have friend notes? I remember my new acquaintance is called Chopchop, not Xxx420dongsquad.7182. (Fictional example.) If I need to use someone‘s crafting, or if I had a good group in a dungeon with someone, I want to be able to write that down next to their name. NIckname isn‘t enough here, and it‘ll make me lose sight of their account name. ‘nuff said. Priority: Very high.

-QoL: In line with the previous suggestion, please have notifications for guild members signing on and offline. They already exist for friends, why not add an option to enable the same for guild members?
“But Paladine”, you might say. What if your guild is really big? I don’t want spam.” Then turn it off silly. It’s optional. Priority: Moderate.

-QoL: In line with previous suggestion (again), a button to display guild information would be nice. There is a GMotD already, but that is mostly for mutable data, such as planning for guild events, announcing new awesome things your guild has/new promotions, or wishing people happy birthday because your guild is super nice. The Guild Info Tab would be for more persistent information, such as guild websites, forums, voice communications info, etc. “But Paladine,” you might say. “What if I want to whine about this because I can?” Then don’t, silly person. Pick something else! Plenty to choose from! Also I hate you. (<3) Priority: Moderate.

-QoL: Related to previous suggestion, displaying the GMotD in your chat window on login would be handy, and again every time the GMotD is changed. Most games do this I believe. It’s kind of invisible otherwise, and it doesn’t take up much room in the chat box. Win win for everybody I would think. Priority: Moderately High.

-QoL: Last Login Date for Guild. How about adding another column for last login date? This helps guild officers keep track of which members are in inactive, and whether or not they’ll need more officers. Helps with management and keeping an accurate tab on their numbers for guild missions and whatnot. Priority: Moderately High. Thanks to Phantom for this.

-QoL: Commander Tag Options. Various commander tag functionalities, basically visibility to specific groups (party, guild, public.) Here’s a post for more info. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Suggestion-Diversity-with-Commander-Tags/first#post2475601 Thanks to Phantom for this. Priority: Very High.

-QoL: More emotes eventually would be nice. Just small ones. Don’t even need animations on them. I want to /slap someone, or /thank, or /greet. The ~15 or so that we have just doesn’t cut it sometimes, especially if you want to signal to an enemy WvW invader that they smell really bad. Priority: Very Low.

-QoL: Buyback improvement. Currently you lose a merchant’s buyback list when you log out, change zones, or too much time has passed (really, just a few minutes I think). Make buyback last until you log out or go to character select. Many people don’t realize they sold some crucial piece of gear in a city until they waypoint to a dungeon and find out their weapons are gone. Priority: Very high.

-QoL: Longer warning for AFK detection and kick. 50 Seconds is a bit short. Add them in increments: 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 50 seconds. Additionally, have AFK be true AFK, not just lack of physical character activity. Guild moderation, talking to people, Trading Post activities all requires us to be on, but currently qualifies as AFK and will kick us in the middle of it.. Frustrating and annoying. Priority: Very High.

Gameplay Changes. Changes various game features
-QoL: Group Queue. Let us queue for the minigames! Keg Brawl, Sanctum Sprint. These would be immensely fun with a bunch of guildies together. What’s the harm? Priority: Moderate

-PotCh: Sigil durations. Sigils that stack (Sigil of Luck, Sigil of bloodlust) lose their stacks when you enter a new zone. Why? Is it to artificially gate the sigil’s power? It seems needless. There’s already a huge risk in using it, why make it so hard to utilize effectively? Being afraid of people abusing stacking it in a low level zone and moving to a high level zone seems like massive paranoia. It doesn’t hurt us, it just makes us waste a lot of time. It’s frustrating. Priority: Moderately high.

-QoL: Updated Tooltips. How much power/cond.damage do X stacks of might give? It’s already listed if you have a skill that gives might. Why not tell us when we hover over our buffs? Might’s a static, linear boon. Why hide this information? I understand why on skills with variable values, like regen or condition damages. It can be confusing and misleading. But you can’t go wrong with vulnerability or Might. Priority: Moderate.

-PotCh: Personal Damage Meters. Before you go any further, let me say that again. PERSONAL damage meters. The point of not having them in the first place, if I theorize correctly, is to foster a sense of community and prevent elitism from surfacing. That’s good! I like that about the game. But I also want to test damage builds. I want to see if condition damage is better for me than crit. I can math it out theoretically, but it won’t take into account latency, or my fat fingers pressing wrong skills. Is binding blade worth using for dps? Which combo finisher is best for damage in a dps rush fight? Does my guardian really hit like a wet noodle? I don’t want to capture a video and go through all the numbers painstakingly, checking all the DoT ticks and crits and blahhhhh. And sometimes my math is bad, or I don’t want to do math, or our community metadata is inaccurate. And sometimes I’m just lazy, or I just got a new shiny piece of gear from a chest, and I want to see if it’s better. I don’t want to recalculate everything and theorycraft new skill usages for 60 more stat points in a different area. (Celestial gear anybody?) I just want to dps pew pew. If this is still problematic in dungeons (though I don’t see how it can be; damage meters are, again, PERSONAL, and they can’t be shown or linked to anybody, save for super-elitist-supergroupsuperfriends-superteam who want screenshots, and really at that point you can just leave the party), then have it be an option to only be usable at training dummies. (And really, if parties ask for screenshots of damage at training dummies, you know that’s pointless. If they fail to take into account class boons, utility, aoe etc, that’s a group to stay away from.)* Priority: Very high.*

-FunCh: Dual Specs. Sometimes stuff happens in dungeons, and you need to go tank, or dps, or support. This is already somewhat addressed with the major trait system, which is really cool by the way, I love it. But sometimes my group makeup isn’t working out as I hoped it would, and I need to supplement it. Synergy is nice. Or maybe I just don’t like running to a trainer. I do, however, see the problem in fractals. Fractals are random, meant to be challenging, and want you to adapt. A dual spec could make it trivial. Dungeons as well, to a lesser degree. I don’t know what your design philosophy is on this. If this is the case, I can see why it’s not in the game, and why you would potentially want to keep it out. But if you think it’s a neat idea ArenaNet, perhaps add an option to purchase it for lots of money (I’m talking gold here), or perhaps with gems. It’s a valuable luxury option, it better be hefty. “But Paladine,” you might say. “I think it’s a terrible idea. Professions are already versatile, especially with the major trait changes you pointed out!” Yes, I agree. I’m not sure on this one either. Hence, fundamental. Game is probably fine without it, since respecs are so cheap. Just a convenience luxury item here. Priority: Very low.

-FunCh: Inspecting other people. Currently it’s disabled, as far as I know, to prevent checking gear and refusing entrance to guilds, etc. But people walk around all the time ogling at cool weapons and gear. How about enabling inspecting gear, but hiding ALL stats? If it’s an item with variable stats, (eg Berserker’s/knight’s draconic/Armageddon gear), just show the base item type (Draconic/Armageddon.) On top of this, show all names in a neutral color, like white, so you can’t check its rarity. Legendaries, exotics, masterwork. All white names. It won’t prevent knowledgeable people from knowing what it is, but it will allow people new to the game to check out those cool items you got from Super Adventure Box.* Priority: Very Low.*

-FunCh: Fractal repairs. I think the only way to repair in fractals is to restart everything. From a design standpoint, it’s challenging. From a player standpoint, it can be frustrating to have broken gear at the last fractal and not be able to clear it. “But Paladine,” you might say. “There are repair canisters!” Yes, there are. Hence, a fundamental change. I’m not sure it should be made, and probably shouldn’t. Just something to think about.

-FunCh: Skill slot setups. Somewhat in line with the previous suggestion. Have 2 sets of skills, so you can swap them. Maybe I have a Dora the Explorer skill set, for example, with all my speed buffs, and a rock’em sock’em robot one with my regular skill set. Can’t swap them until they’re all off cool down, and only if not in combat, of course. Again, perhaps have this be purchasable with gems. It’s a luxury. Priority: Very low.

Personal Pet Peeves (Warning, very salty ahead. You can skip it!): I love PvP in pretty much every game. I’ve been highly rated in competitive PvP (WoW primarily. Gladiator rank. Tooting my own horn here.) I play PvP a lot. But I hate PvP in this game. It’s unbalanced. Not saying WoW was perfectly balanced, it was far from it. But it allowed counterplay. It let you do neat tricks, try out new things. In Gw2, it’s so much worse. It’s very rock paper scissors, and it’s exacerbated by the cooldown skill system. If you have the wrong skills slotted against a particular profession, you’ll lose pretty much every single time. Some professions have broken mechanics. By broken, I mean they have mechanics that have no counterplay. You can’t outplay the opponent. You either lose, or they mess up really badly and you might have a chance to not lose. You can’t win. Stealth doesn’t break on taking damage? Somewhat understandable, but still incredibly frustrating. Maybe it would be okay, but A.) stealth is potentially permanent, and B.) stealth doesn’t even break on CC. Really Anet? Where’s my counterplay? Want to escape from 2 opponents, or force them into an environment where it’s not so onesided? Just kidding! You can’t do it. You’re in combat and you’re slowed forever! Speed buffs can’t compensate for in-combat slow, and anybody and their grandmother can catch up to you. Want to outplay an opponent by stunning, slowing, or knocking them down to gain some breathing space? Just kidding! By slowing an opponent who has more speed abilities at their disposal, all you do is shoot yourself in the foot and guarantee an engagement. Oh, unless you have an unbreakable stealth. Then you can do whatever you want, npnp. No diminishing returns? Hello perma-CC! Stability you say? Let’s wait a few seconds, then lock him down forever again! I don’t have a solution to this. It’s an inherent problem of the skill system, the combat system, and individual class mechanics that make respective classes feel satisfying to play. It can just be really frustrating. I’m just venting here. Yes, yes, every class has a role in sPvP and WvW. Kinda. It’s not nearly as well rounded as I would like. Priority: Extremely low. Some people love this system. I don’t know if this is fixable by my standards, and I know some people don’t want to fix it. I am really just being sad panda.

Thank you for bearing with me through that. It was long. And exhausting. Just like Arah. But hopefully some of the points I made weren’t from my head being too far stuck in my nether regions, and you’ll find them acceptable to put in, or at least worth considering! Much love everybody.
-Korthian, Charr Guardian

I haven’t read all of it (too long to read it at work), but I just thought about dungeon tokens and bank slots… since you can not deposit them as collectibles (although you get the context menue, but it’s not active), they take up a lot of space – thanks to the limit of 250.

I’d rather like to see them in the collections tab – or, even better – give them an extra tab within the bank, like, let’s say “currencies”. There shouldn’t be a limit of 250 then, more like open end, since you need more than 250 to buy items with them.

I do somehow understand, that they are limited to 250 per stack: to get players to buy the bank expansions. But now that there are so many items, skins and other things you’d like to deposit in the bank, I think that argument doesn’t count anymore…

There’s some good stuff here, but unfortunately mixed in with stuff I don’t agree with, so I can’t +1 you. While you may think you’ve been considerate by bundling everything into one post, it may have worked better with a separate topic for each suggestion.

A quick note on Focus Frames and Target’s Target; one of ArenaNet’s stated goals when designing the game was to shift player focus away from red bars and buffs/debuffs and onto the world and the creatures inhabiting it. Now, they themselves have gradually slipped away from this focus over time, but I agree with them that this core idea is a good one. While watching statistical representations makes things more efficient, it removes the soul of the game.

for you section on guilds, i would also add the ability for guild leaders to see the last login date for each member in the guild as a QoL improvement with a moderately high rating.

there’s also a ton that needs to be done to the commander functionality, but a great start to all of that is already covered here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Suggestion-Diversity-with-Commander-Tags/first#post2475601 sure, a few more things would be extremely helpful to commanders and anyone following them, but they need to actually start somewhere and the ideas presented in that thread are the perfect place. i would say they would classify as QoL improvements and rank very high, if not even higher.

aside from that though, your list looks extremely good, and is very well thought out and presented.

Mungrul.9358:

There’s some good stuff here, but unfortunately mixed in with stuff I don’t agree with, so I can’t +1 you. While you may think you’ve been considerate by bundling everything into one post, it may have worked better with a separate topic for each suggestion.

Well, sure, which parts did you disagree with? As I said, feedback is appreciated, and this is by no means a be-all end-all list of necessary changes.

As for focus frames and target frames, I do remember something along the lines of it being against the spirit of the game, hence why I listed it as a Fundamental Change, rather than Quality of Life. Fun.Changes I saw as more radical, and I understand if people are wary of them, and don’t want them implemented. Fine with me! I obviously am not on the developing team, and I don’t know which features were intentionally there to create a specific feel in the game.

As for the giant list, well, I didn’t really want to flood the forum with 15 separate topics, but you’re right in that there are accessibility issues here. My hope was that users would scan the start of each topics to see if there was something they were hoping for (or disagree with. Dissenting opinions are good!), read my suggested implementation, and provide feedback on that particular aspect. I should clarify that though, thanks.

Phantom.8130:

for you section on guilds, i would also add the ability for guild leaders to see the last login date for each member in the guild as a QoL improvement with a moderately high rating.

Good points, I’ll add those in and reference that commander post, it’s a good idea.

Updated original post with some feedback I received.

stealth counter and lack of DR is serious issue imo. necros stacking fears or stun warriors perma locking you yeah…. looking forward to fix

And many times there’s nothing you can do if you don’t have the right skills slotted, which you probably don’t because you usually have a set of general skills trying to catch all the other professions.

Dungeon tokens and all other forms of currency should be tracked the same way karma, laurels, and gold are at the bottom of the inventory screen. There’s no need for them to take inventory space.

Damage meters are fine as long as they are exclusively personal, as you’ve said. The minute they’re public, I’ll go play something else. People drive me crazy with their obsession over those things.

I disagree with the desire for an inspection option, unless it only shows the cosmetic details. I don’t necessarily want other people looking at my gear and thereby being able to criticize it for not being what they consider ideal. If someone wants to know what a specific skin is, all they have to do is ask.

It is possible to repair during fractals, although it requires a workaround to do so. If the person who needs to repair goes to character select and logs back in on their character, they’ll load in LA, which allows them to repair and then reenter the fractal without resetting anything. IIRC, this does not work for the person who started the run; as with any other instance, if that person leaves, the rest of the party gets kicked out.