Guild Wars 2

Name a single UI improvement to a current UI system since release?

To me UI design is the lifeblood of an MMO, UI systems make the game manageable beyond the day-to-day grind of killing Wombats and running AC.

But what are the UI systems of GW2 and what major and necessary systems are sorely missing? One, the LFG console, is an obvious one that most people know. But many other systems are sorely missing and most players may not even know it.

LFG
www.gw2lfg.com has done a wonderful job of highlighting just how silly having a game with no LFG method beyond local chat is. GW2 allows cross server grouping, meaning that at any time atleast 5 people are willing to do whatever it is you’re doing. The problem is that GW2 currently has no way to actually bring these people together.

What is needed: A replication of gw2LFG ingame. No autojoin, no extra rewards, no instant grouping. Just a simple message board type menu that has multiple general categories (dungeon, zone, misc), some subcatagories (AC, Char Starting, Wombat Farming), a list of groups LFM and players LFG with room for a comment.

Guild Search

Many guilds are dying, while others are thriving. This is the nature of post-release MMOs. Yet a communication problem exists as to what guilds are available and what they offer in terms of culture and membership.

Some people want small, tight-knit groups, some want focused guilds for specific purposes, some want large communities where someone is always on. Regardless of what type of guild someone is looking for, they cannot find it within GW2.

What is needed: The ability to set your guild to closed or recruiting and then have recruiting guilds show up on an ingame menu with information such as: Name, Description, Current number of members, Average Playtime, Focus, and Timezone. Allow requirements to be set via specific achievements (minimum 1 level 80, minimum rank 2 PvP, minimum 10000 Wombat kills) and then have applicants appear in a list in the guild panel for acceptance, rejection or further interviewing.

Guild Calendar
Organising events is the main way to build guild loyalty, and GW2 offers no help in this regard.

What is needed: Standard guild calendar. Integration with StoryMode side panel, so leaders can create custom quests with rewards (Kill 50 Wombats, 50 Players, Gather 10 Copper Ore Nodes: Get 10 silver, 10 guild points).

Achievement Tracker
Currently, to keep track of achievement progress you need to navigate 3 menus and go through several scroll bars.

What is needed: Integrate with StoryMode sidebar. 4999/10000 Wombats Killed. Easy.

Conclusion: All these systems are bringing things people do externally in to the game, where people actually need it. People visiting external sources to do something ingame is a complete failure of a game, especially when systems like those listed are fairly straight forward to implement.

Their absence is an indication of poor priorities. Programmers are scuttled in exchange for voice actors, modelers, and script writers. Systems are what make a game work longterm, not a 1% increase in the number of events, not 2% increased landmass. Systems allow people to play the game with other people, they build community, and community is what makes online games shine.

Above are only a few of the major systems that are sorely lacking from GW2, systems are those things which bring information together within the game and make it available to all. If you have further systems which you believe necessary please leave a response.

I’d pay real money to be able to move the UI components around on screen and to be able to move the weapon buttons around like the skill buttons. I’d love to have an exrta bar to be able to put food on and weapons to swap. I guess I took for granted that a modern day MMO would have small polished features such as this.

I agree with everything here, they need to really read this.

If any of you devs happen to read this ADD DUELING

also additional side bars for some minor items

For gods sake the game’s barely been out for 4 months. Give it time! WoW’s (yes, I said WoW. Just because I mentioned the game does not warrant a flame war. It is just an example. This is not a green light to troll) vanilla UI didn’t even support extra action bars for like half a year! Granted, we were able to use addons to solve this problem… but it’s the content provided by the devs we are talking about.

A LFG tool would be nice and they have said that they are working on it. It can’t be something as easy to develop as some people seem to think. They have also said they are considering dueling. Give it some time.

Anet is just prioritizing their attention to other more pressing matters such as content, bug fixes, and class balancing. They likely have several teams on multiple projects. When one project gets done they will let us know. You gotta give a game that’s still infancy some slack!

When the automobile was in its infantcy, it did not have air conditioning. Now don’t you expect a new, state of the art, car to have air conditioning? Of course you do. Some new cars are released with problems and bugs to fix, but they have air conditioning rolling off the lot.

LinkR.6190:

For gods sake the game’s barely been out for 4 months. Give it time!

Time is exactly what the game doesn’t have.

Lack of communication and community will kill a game faster than anything.

I’m not saying ‘endgame’ is missing, or ‘we need a new dungeon’. I’m not bored.

UI Systems are what drives the rest of the content forward. There is a plethora of content in the game, but what good is CM when you can’t find the other 4 people who want to do it with you?

What good is an extensive world completion, when you have to do it solo, or your guild has already done it and you can’t find a newer guild that has members that want to do it with you?

What good are achievements if the only way to keep track of them is via 3 submenus?

What good are guilds if managing new and old players, organising events, and keeping track of people is so hard to be frustrating?

And what good is ‘waiting’ when the only changes to the game so far have been balance and content.

It may well be that ANet are under the false assumption that their UI is acceptable- that’s it’s completed. What good would waiting do us then?

Good thing the next few big updates all focus on the content and quality of life stuff wed already have. Or at lest thats what i gatherd from the one devs post ( i would quote it if i wasnt on my phone at work on brake right now)

Usability is a subject near and dear to my heart, so naturally I love these points.

More than that, two of of the big ones are social network related: looking for groups and guild functionality. MMO’s need that social aspect to survive, and a strong social network can actually keep players who would otherwise move on to the next big shiny thing from doing so. They give people a reason to want to keep playing.

So these are things ANet should look at doing not just because players want them, but because it will actually help ANet retain customers long term.

Did the guild calender suggestion casually mention player-generated dynamic events? That is the million dollar win right there.

i agree whit u on all

Agree with LFG system but that’s it.

In regards of Guilds.
1) If a leader is not able to fill the roster with loyal people then his leadership failed and he shouldn’t be running a guild to begin with. Good leaders never needed any automatic recruiting system to get members, only an uninspiring leader with bad communication skills would need such a system.
Such a system would make guilds even more of a gimmicky thing than they already are.
2) Good Guilds don’t need an in-game calendar either, they have a forum for that; if members aren’t even bothering with the forums/guild facebook they don’t really care about the guild anyways.

While PuGging requires automatic tools, Guilds require commitment and dedication.
Taking out these requirements defeat the core purpose of a guild.

Red Falcon.8257:

In regards of Guilds.
1) If a leader is not able to fill the roster with loyal people then his leadership failed and he shouldn’t be running a guild to begin with. …
2) Good Guilds don’t need an in-game calendar either, …

I understand your point. If a member can’t even log on to a forum, why are they a member of a guild anyway?

I just see things differently. I care about my guild, but I hate logging on to the forums and sifting through irrelevant posts in the hope that an event is listed for GW2 specifically.

Forums have the problem that even if all members check them, you can never be sure that 100% of the people online have read your specific post.

Using the UI you can ensure that every person online is made aware immediately that an event is beginning, and it then becomes up to them whether to participate or not.

Yes, chat can serve that function- just as chat can serve the LFG function, just as chat can serve the function that the Trading Post does- but chat is essentially an unordered mess that never feels like part of the game.

Give leaders the ability to put Go to Lion’s Arch, Kill 10 Rats, Dance, Speak to 5 Children in the top right hand corner of every guild members screen, give each member the ability to ignore that popup and all future popups for that event, and you will give leaders an invaluable tool for guild management and community building.

Third party calendars, forums, teamspeaks are all great tools, but they are tools used specifically to get around a failure of ingame communication. UI can do better, it should do better, and unless intrusive we shouldn’t use bad AI as a trial that ‘bad’ guild leaders have to overcome to prove they are ‘bad’.

Also remember that not all guilds are created equally. The guilds you talk about are generalist guilds suited to overall gameplay and cooperation. Many guilds in GW2 are specialised guilds that have members who don’t represent them yet are formed as a sort of extended friends list. I’m in a Fractals LFG guild and the maintenance of it is terrifying. We have to advertise via word of mouth, we have posts on forums, etc- but if someone is sitting in Lion’s Arch and says “Gee I wish there was a guild specific to Fractals, or a top level pvp guild, or a roleplaying guild” they would have no way ingame to find them.

That seems ridiculous to me. That the game could do that, but it’s not there. People pm me, I represent the guild, type /ginvite, then rerepresent my main guild again. That’s illogically cumbersome, and tiring. Why not a /gjoin function, why not a UI menu?

If your guild doesn’t want to recruit ingame, then just don’t flag yourself as recruiting. Let the ‘bad’ guild leaders fail and come begging on their knees to join the ‘proper’ guilds that don’t need silly UIs to get things done.

(Think I lost my train of thought somewhere in there.)

The biggest ui issue i have that should have been fixed before launch is how the ah text is completely unreadable with small ui.

I agree with what you are saying, give some quality of life things and let us enjoy the game. However this game doesnt have time – it is in trouble.

I will help you and hopefully you will get the ah ha moment. It is a direct replication of Bioware and Tor.
Tor launched and had ability delay in the game it affected the republic more so but they kept saying no nothing wrong at all it is your computer. Patch 1.2 notes- fixed ability delay

Anet and security – they were warned about security and issues what happened is they blamed us the player and not them who developed the game. 1.5 months later guess what added security and an app but it was still our fault. Stop going to nefarious sites/ bad password.

Hacking/exploiting/forum moderation – At the start Bioware said there wasnt any and no
way to report people. If you did try Bam- nasty gram and you get a nice 3 Day time Out.
In Tor the Valor exploiter on Illum where able to keep their speed levels as well cause Bioware needed the subs and new things were going badly for them.

Anet- Ring any Bells? Bots no way to report/gold sellers. Hacking there were no hacks in WvW or anything you were just a noob who didnt understand mechanics. By the time they decided there was a problem it was too far gone to control and WvW most people have left because of Orbs/Hacks and free transfers.
As for the Karma Weapons exploiters they were unbanned on the promise that they deleted their gold. lots kept it – at least the ones I knew about.
Say anything on these boards and Nasty-gram. I dont blame the mods at all they take a lot of abuse from Us it is just them doing what they are told to do.

This is just the opening few weeks of each games life and they mirror very well. You can trace the Bio decisions and compare them to Anet decisions and see the ramifications are very similar.The one thing it has going for it is that there is no sub fee. What I can say is that of my friends I am the only one playing and after whatever caused them to leave they havent come back.

I truly hope Anet can right the ship because we all know how Tor is and GW2 isnt far behind. Just take a look at the biggest MMO 2012 mistakes. And Before you go and GW2 is game of the year – So was Tor.

Guilds, LFG are some big fails or things that wasn’t really worked on, they just did the basics of them and that’s why they are not working well.

What I hope it’s that the game manages to make big changes to some systems and content and also bring back things players loved from GW1 that were “trashed by the Devs” in GW2.

Seems like maybe ANet agrees

I know it’s not an either/or thing…

but the perception that basic functionality is taking a back seat to the extra stuff is not good. Cuz now mad king is gone, Tixx/Toxx is gone, and we still suffer a game that’s not yet working right.

Priorities seem so off.

JaironKalach.4938:

Seems like maybe ANet agrees

The way I read that post is that what he is talking about is again content. New quests to make the areas feel alive. New npcs singing songs. New weapon skins.

Things that will be redundant within a week of going live..

I’d love to be proven wrong. But the phrasing leads me to think that their priorities are still on static consumable content, instead of systems which would enhance communication and the effectiveness of already available content.

Imagine if every voice actor, modeler, and script writer that was kept on to work on Lost Shores was fired and that money was used to give a dedicated systems programmer massages and candy (and perhaps a salary).

He’d only have to put gw2lfg.com in to an ingame menu akin to the trading post and then we’d at least be making some progress. Then we’d of at least eliminated one useless stream of consciousness from LA shout chat. That’d take 2 hours for a test model and 2 weeks of extensive testing. Then we’d be in to improvements instead of being stuck at step 0.