I have been thinking about these changes for a while now and have finally gotten them written up in a way that I think will generate meaningful discussion and hopefully a positive change in the game interface. I am going to cross post this to the reddit forum as well.
New consumables window
The consumables window could be a new interface, or a new part of the inventory/wallet interface. The purpose is to hold and quickly access boon consumables. This is shared across the account, and not character specific. This would not be for consumables such as experience tomes or tonics.
Another possible alternative for an interface could be a mini UI pop-up window like some games have skill or action bars with the same type of functions.
The dynamics of the consumables can go a couple of ways. I see it as a right-click and add to consumables option like the materials storage. This way you can still sell on the TP, deposit to guild Treasury, deposit to guild bank or personal bank, etc… Another option would be for an automatic deposit like currencies but with some dynamic in place that allows for mailing, selling, or depositing.
The actual slots that hold the consumables should be set up like inventory slots with a default assignment from top to bottom, left to right. You would organize the consumable per tab in the order that you want them used with a check box that would set the option to automatically activate the consumable when the previous one expires. There should also be some dynamic to switch up if you want to go through a whole stack of a particular consumable before moving on to another type.
Maybe there could be some code that applies the most appropriate consumable of that type for the land you are currently in when the next consumable activates?
Should there be a limit to the number of slots available, or the number of items that can be stored?
I think this should be made generally available, but should there be some tie to Black Lion purchases; maybe to upgrade the number of slots or functionality? Maybe these could be made to be crafting items for top level crafting, part of a collection, or end achievement (not tied to something that does NOT make sense for the item such as a jumping puzzle, activity, or particular pvp, wvw, or pve event/enemy).
Lunchbox
- Food consumables
- Including food items purchased from vendors as well as items crafted by the chef profession.
- Should this also include “group” type food items such as trays of food or feasts?
- This does include metabolic primer
Drink (or potion) cabinet
- Potions and drinks consumables
- Including potions purchased from vendors as well as those crafted by artificers
- Does not include transformation tonics
- Should this include the alcohol drinks that do not actually give a boon, but do count towards the various drinking achievements?
- This does include utility primer
Boosters
- This includes another potential change to the way boosters work: I am proposing a booster charge system much like the transmutation charge system or the enchanted booster system. You could purchase (or receive for reward) booster “charges” that will allow you at some point in the future to select a booster to add to your store. This way you can stock the specific booster set you will need for the task you are going to tackle and not end up with 80 crafting boosters when you really just want to raid. So as part of this system, all existing boosters on the account would be changed to charges that you would spend on the specific boosts you want to keep in stock.
- Charge can be used for any booster type
- This tab has dedicated slots or a list of each booster along with the total in stock
- Boosters are not removable from the consumables window
- Existing booster powder is changed into charges
- There is no separation between pve, wvw, or pvp boosters being changed into charges, which goes back to the original goal of playing the way you want to play
- Should this include communal boosts such as the bonfire?
Tool chest
- This tab is for all gathering tools including unlimited tools
- Should gathering tools of similar type with the same (full) number of uses be allowed to stack?
- Should unlimited tools stack on the same type, or maybe allow a change in type? You have already purchased the tool when they were soulbound, so it is not like you are getting something for free. This is actually a pretty good idea to get more people using a larger variety of the tools.
Salvage chest
- This tab is for all salvage kits
- If this is part of the inventory should silver and copper fed salvage tools be allowed to move to this location or be kept in the account shared inventory slots it seems a lot of people purchased for that purpose?
- Since salvaging materials currently requires double-clicking on the salvage kit to activate, there will need to be some utility command added to start the salvage process.
- This will necessitate multiple commands for the multiple levels of kit or dynamics to assign an auto-salvage kit based on “level” of item being salvaged.
- Maybe we can add a new option or a new interface button for salvage all blues, or salvage all greens, etc…
- Maybe have an option to right-click and salvage that then brings up a window with salvage kit options
Addition to inventory window
These are changes or additions to the Inventory window specifically that I have been thinking about. You will notice that some (cough… keychain… cough) have been brought up before.
Keychain
- New tab in the inventory window
- List of all keys like the wallet list of all currencies
- Keys used in current map zone are default selected
- All items used to unlock or open containers are automatically added to this location
- Keys that are broken into pieces that need to be double-clicked to a larger piece are stored and stacked in the pieces and will require a double-click to generate the larger piece which automatically shows or increments in the appropriate location
Trophy case
- New tab in the inventory window
- Trophies do not auto-add to this location and must be sent either by a right-click or through a menu option
- This tab lists and stacks all trophies that can be sold to collectors for specific rewards such as mordrem parts, fossilized-insects, and chak eggs
- Items in this tab are not seen by standard vendors and will not be sold as junk
Black lion bag
- This is an account wide tab for specific use items purchased or received as login reward from the TP
- There are specifically slots or a listing for the following items in the single use version only:
- Bank access express
- Banker golem
- Captain’s airship pass
- Home portal stone
- Instant repair canister
- Merchant express
- Trading post express
- Upgrade extractor
- Revive orb
- Although this is not part of the black lion items, I think that this is actually a good location to have the hall of monuments portal stone as well
Bag of Tricks
I have had a lot of trouble figuring out where this window should go and have bounced between the inventory, hero panel, and account vault. While this tab does not exactly fit for the purposes of the inventory, which is to say items that you need to interact with in the various game play modes to advance, it does fit in terms of items that you interact with in the world that you should not need to go to the bank to get first.
- An account wide tab or window for specific use, entertainment type of items that do not such as Marjory’s journal, balloons, kites, boxes of fun
- Items do not auto-assign to this bag, but must be dropped in. Only specific items will be allowed to be added to this bag
- This bag should not take up any standard bag slot
- I would like this bag to also include account bound miniatures that are already unlocked which cannot be used in the mystic forge or salvaged (like but not limited to mini queen jennah). You don’t interact with these, but they just take up bank space and serve no purpose. Alternatively maybe they can be added as guild level materials – to that end; this is also listed in a section for that change
Instrument Case
This is like the bag of tricks in not really knowing where it should go, but it kind of feels right to have it with the inventory so that you can interact with your instruments anywhere in the world at any time. This is shared across accounts.
- There are dedicated slots for all musical instruments.
- Maybe tie this to a collection achievement, where the case could be part of the reward?
Change or addition to Hero panel
These are changes or additions to the Hero Panel window that I have been thinking about.
Wardrobe
- Add action animations to the wardrobe window for weapons and armor
- For armor, include jump, dodge, swim, glide
- For weapons, include holding weapon, swap main and off hand if applicable, pulling weapon, stowing weapon, main weapon action (swing for sword, shot for pistol, etc…)
- Allow the option to toggle other armor off when using the wardrobe to select new armor options. There are too many options that cover other armor, particularly the medium coats covering the medium legs. It would be nice to see what they would like without being covered without needing to select a placeholder piece.
- Move self-style hair kits, total makeover kit, and name change contracts to the wardrobe system and make them accessible like the transmutations. It would be nice if we could actually access the self-style hair kit options within the wardrobe system as well so that we could see what the options would look like with a favorite armor/dye set
Recipe book
- I think this should be under the crafting tab of the Hero Panel, but the issue with that is if a character on an account does not have a crafting discipline learned yet, that character cannot interact with the crafting tab. Maybe this should be a new tab.
- This lists all recipes unlocked across the account for every crafting profession. Since some end-items are shared across professions with different base ingredients, I am thinking that it would be good to have this list have multiple options for display:
- By profession
- By crafting level
- By crafting item (weapon, armor, sigil, potion, etc…)
- I would like for the recipe to have a drill down for ingredients
- All recipes should show which characters have them unlocked and preferably what level of crafting for that profession that character has
- This should include both Scribe and Mystic Forge recipes
- For Mystic Forge, it should have any recipe used on the account that generates a specific outcome such as all of the mystic weapons; this does not need to have the account name for the character that discovered the recipe
- Merchants selling recipes should now display a dialog that the account already has the recipe unlocked, are you sure you want to make the purchase
- Should there be any interaction with recipes on the account that have not yet been consumed? Maybe store the unconsumed recipes here to be activated on a specific character or activated and assigned to a specific character
- A possible idea that I know that some people will not like this because of the option of leveling alts, is to make recipes account bound altogether but still have a recipe book for known recipes on the account.
Bestiary
- This should be a new tab under equipment
- This shows all pets charmed by rangers across the account
- There should be a preview screen similar to the miniatures screen that allows you to see the pet with your character. While this is only useful for a ranger profession, I see no reason to not have this tab accessible by all characters with assignments available only to rangers. This will allow future elite specializations to maybe pick up a pet or two.
- Pets would be grouped by land, water, and air (if air combat and pets are added in the future)
- There would be check boxes to indicate which two pets are selected for the particular field type
- Preview has action preview for attacks
- There should also be a preview for the pet attacks and actions
Change or addition to Material Storage
These are changes or additions to the Material Storage portion of the Account Vault
Larder or pantry
- Material storage for made chef items that can be further refined into other foods
- This includes items such as bowl of ice cream base, ball of dough, etc…
Miscellaneous Materials
- This is for all of the crafting materials that are used specifically in various mystic forge or other recipes that have no storage option such as mystic forge stones, mystic forge tonics, vision crystals, the various gifts, blade shards, etc…
- This is not for general purpose materials that can be used in the mystic forge such as salvage kits
Tertiary Materials
- For storing completed dowels, insignia’s, chains, filigree, hooks, and other various crafting components that you will be using later.
Change to charging items
- Allow for charging items at Hero Points when the item is in material storage or the account bank not just in the inventory bag. I am thinking of a listing like with the Mordrem collections that require an interaction with the gas cloud. You get a list of options to choose from for what you have available that could be charged.
Change to guild level material
- Make account bound miniature that are already unlocked which cannot be used in the mystic forge or salvaged (like but not limited to mini queen jennah) a currency for an optional or required guild upgrade. Maybe allow a specific number to substitute for another currency. This could help some of the smaller guilds with a lot of alts progress faster. Alternatively, I am suggesting that these can be added to a new bag of tricks window for holding to stop them from taking up bank storage space.
edit – formatting change to how a sub-heading was displayed
(edited by BlueIce.6951)