Guild Wars 2

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

The chat feature and 4 markers are rarely used by the groups I’m in because we communicate over voice, and people are asked to group on commander for /supplyinfo rather than being in the squad. Right now there isn’t much point in joining up except for the tag exclusivity.

It may be too much network data, but if we could get dots on the map, simple health bar information, or even #alive/#total for squad members in the UI, that’d be a huge reason to use them—any additional information i get about the members of the squad I’m in helps coordinate, which is the primary reason squads exist.

EDIT: put another way, right now squads are mostly tools for the commander to communicate to members. Make them a way to gather information about members and they’ll be more popular.

I’ve spent a lot of time in both pug and guild groups using the target system as a pseudo tag over the last few months, wishing that the commander tag could be visible to only the squad or a guild. If we could free up the target to actually call out enemies and have a privately visible commander, that’d be extremely helpful. Making the tag visible within the squad would allow people to create custom groups for coordination without some of the confusion we have now for squadless players. I’ve had multiple commanders wish that they could split their force into ranged/melee or primary/flank groups but it’s hard to do that with the current visible-to-all tags (which is where targeting your pseudo-commander comes in)

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

It doesn’t matter if there’s a karma train running, but if there is something that needs to be done quietly, most FA commanders tag down habitually. A squad-only or guild-only commander tag would make people less paranoid about being visible on the map.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

I’d prefer it, if only as a reminder that my tag is up—the icon under the directional indicator on the minimap isn’t always easy to see when there’s stuff going on.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

I’ve seen commander hunting turn a fight quickly; if you make it simple to detect and take down commanders early in a fight I think it’d mean more chaotic fights and less coordination.

Organized guilds already have a chain of command that can take over when the primary commander is out of a fight, and you would theoretically be rewarding groups that can recover from commander losses… but you’d also make it more grueling to be the commander, and frankly that’s not a barrel of laughs for many groups as is—adding another reason to be frustrated or turn off the tag is not a good idea IMO.

Dub.1273:

Also, this has been out for so long and has already been known, there is just no excuse for fumbles still happening.

Well, you’re obviously the expert.

Verifying the bug is part one, they can probably reproduce it at will which is step two.

From there, you need to figure out what code broke, which isn’t always simple when you’re dealing something happening over a network—maybe it’s the actual dodge code on the server, maybe it’s the client code that’s supposed to send the dodge signal, maybe it’s the client prediction not working correctly and the server is overriding the client’s simulation once the dodge has started (e.g. the server says you’re already in CC but the client doesn’t know that yet due to network latency, so it starts the roll).

Once they have a smoking gun for the bug, they need figure out which approach to fix it will (1) really solve the problem end users see, (2) minimize the chance of other stuff breaking, and (3) not make the code a mess to modify later.

Once you have a plan to fix it, you still need to do the actual update and testing, which takes time.

I’m not sure what stage they are in, but it can be difficult to forecast a solution time before you’ve decided what approach to take, and as I said above even pinpointing the problem can be a headache when you’re looking at client/server with simulation on both sides.

My wife and I have had to ask support to waive gem purchase restrictions 5 times now, and our last support request (12/20) was closed without messaging back to us. I was unable to buy test gems in BWE2/3, and her account has not been able to purchase gems without contacting support since launch.

Past support tickets were resolved by allowing us a short window to purchase:
[Incident: 120908-007696] – 9/13, my account
[Incident: 120915-001279] – 9/14, her account
[Incident: 121118-003524] – 11/18, her account
[Incident: 121130-000690] – 11/30, her account

The current (problem) incidents are [Incident: 121220-000775] and [Incident: 121230-000193]… the first one mentioned escalation and then went into a black hole; my wife opened the second after the first was closed, but it was marked a duplicate.

We both thoroughly enjoy the game, and my wife would love to have a little Foostivoo chasing her character, but it has been frustrating trying to use the store—I’m sure answering a ticket every time is not what a-net would prefer either .

It probably doesn’t help, but other online transactions including the in-game GW1 store and the NCSoft web store have always worked as expected. I did try PayPal for the gem store, and it was rejected, too.

I know that the sheer number of tickets we’ve sent may paint us as problem customers—it’s actually a reflection of the number of times we’ve wanted to give you money. Earlier tickets have stated that the underlying reason for restriction can’t be revealed to us, but I hope some resolution exists that would lift the need to contact support each time we want to make a purchase.

If this isn’t an achievement or set of achievements, it could also go in the dye interface next to the paper doll (just a #/# for current total in each header would be nice, e.g. “Vibrant (12/200)”.

That said, I don’t see why it’s much different than the existing money-only cultural armor achievements under fashion—the system is designed to give people a wide variety of things to care about, and if you really are worried about getting everything achieved, I’d be much more freaked out about “Legendary Collector: 0 Unique Legendary Items” under Explorer than collecting dyes .

Seconded… it’d be nice to have the individual account management stuff on a different channel from statements about the game as a whole.

Wow… I never noticed that clones didn’t get the star. What if they turned the star on for your clones, too? That could be a faster fix than implementing a new option, and people who didn’t realize the problem wouldn’t be penalized.

I would be much more likely to buy town clothes if it was a original-Guild Wars-style unlock (Costume maker) instead of an item that was always in inventory.

As it is, I’m debating how many copies of the freebies like the celebration hat, witch hat, or horns I really want to store/place on characters, and that decision is going to get harder with more objects taking up inventory space.

(side note : the original text was kittened when I said witch’s other-word-for-headgear above, the filter might be a little strict )

Pretty minor change, but it would make it a little easier to get around Rata Sum and the other gate hubs. I have the gates out of LA memorized (and the racial guards are a good hint), but it’d be nice to roll over gates in the minimap and see where they go without stepping up to them.