Official Suggestions Thread - March BWE

You can salvage costumised items, but you can't salvage starter equipment.

I had a couple people tell me they accidentally salvaged a rare weapon when they meant to identify it. We all have large piles of things we want to salvage and it's easy to mess up every now and then, but what if you do it to an uber-weapon?

My suggestion is to have a confirmation or warning screen pop up when you try to salvage a RARE item. I don't want to click through a warning every time I salvage a white mantle badge or a crap sword, but if it's in yellow I'd like some extra protection for those situations where your mind isn't completely there after playing 12 straight hours of games.

Hope to see something like it.

Personally, I use the mouse in 3rd person with autorun assigned to the thumb button; my other hand uses WASD, numbers, and FKeys to strafe, manuever, and perform actions. If I'm stationary, as in a healer role sometimes during battle, or auto-following a team mate I use right mouse button to swing my view around and soak in situational awareness. This would be great, but often there are problems with the camera colliding with geometry and auto-correcting (also known as blinding, confusing, and killing you.) My favorite solution to this age-old 3D problem is to let the camera go wherever it wants above the ground plane and have any intervening geometry go mostly-to-completely transparent. The Dungeon Seige engine did this really well.

Now I realize this could be an issue in competitive situations, such as using the transparency to peek through Guild Hall doors and all. But, don't the enemies already show their exact location on the radar?

[edit]
Well I went into the Guild Hall to double check, and GW does use the transparency and no-collision on objects such as the statues at the base of the stairs. On the large column nearby however it doesn't seem to act quite the same, sometimes it blocks your view and others it just disappears. The actual terrain in all cases collides with your camera. I guess all the pieces are in the right places, but somehow it doesn't feel right. Maybe it's just a matter of fine tuning. There's no doubt though that I've had unexpected camera bumps that have directly led to death in game, and somehow I don't feel that self-restricting the way I view the battle should be a "skill" that I need to hone to be successful at the game, i.e., to avoid death.

I beg you to add a language filter- or even better to have an all, english, german, .... channel. It's sometimes hard for non english speaking players to get some attention in the all channel.
BTW: the language switch is the best newly added thing in this BWE (TM)

Another good thing would be a mark to the player I'm whispering to.

I'm a female playing as a female, and I noticed when I typed certain emotes, for example /catchbreath it would say, "Galatea Nereid stopped to catch his breath."

I know it's not the biggest deal in the world, but I'd like to be acknowledged as a "her" lol.

Thanks! ;D

Okay, please play-balance the @#$% Academy. I just went in as an L5 Mesmer, was paired up with a useless Fighter henchie against a Ranger, a Fighter, a Healer and a Stalker cat, and did miserably. I've never had that problem before, but I was always on Red team and had a good cadre with me. Is the blue team set up for failure?

Anyhow, now I'm trying to do the bunker with a useless henchman who just charges, draws out everyone he sees and then dies. I've tried perhaps 8 times, now, and can't seem to take on any less than 4 opponents at a time. I can't log out and go back, can't change my skill set -- I'll probably have to scrap everything and start over, because it's clear I'm never getting out of the Academy portion.

I'd like to see a way to switch characters without completely logging out and having to enter my password again.

yeah, i'd like to see this too.

also, on the screen to pick which character you would like to play (the ones you've made), instead of just having the name, also have underneath their job and level. i have two elementalists with different secondary professions and they look fairly similar. i have to log into the game to figure out which one it is that i want.

how bout a little more info on the toon picker page? if i haven't played a toon for awhile or something along those lines it would be nice to click on that toon and be told that this toon is a _____/______ at level ##.

If you make a flag, don't make it like an icon make an ectual flag you run around with in your hand.

And you could have like different colors for different types of parties.

Blue= Expierence
Red= Quests
Green= Dance Parties

well i think it would be better if the money and economy went down again like it was last bwe i dont like the really large amts of money gain and money paying for the things i jsut think its easier with elss money to get and les money to pay

Also i think that there should a be a jarrerl the tamer in like yaks bend and maybe the krytan gate because there are new animals there and it takes along time to go all the way back to ascalon to give away animal i got slow dial up man im right now dialiing to get guild hall 2% 1.6mb =( 35 minutes in so slow.jsut wondering is there a way to download like tiny bits of info ata time when playing it mightn slow donw or maybe putting the download starting when the cinamatics come so it download while watching cinamatics

I believe they should do more for the guild's options. Such as you can have multiple guild leaders, more guild classes such as council member..., an area where guilds can stash there guild equipment, its own little dueling area where people in your guild can just have simple duels, and my last demand is that i get gold for winning duels normal and guild.

Another minor suggestion, but it'd be really cool to be able to see the equipment that another character has.

Maybe like /inspect or /check or something.

It's mostly for curiosity and such, but it'd be nice to know what kind of stat/attritbute boosts, as well as armor etc.. a character has.

I disagree, some people find it offensive and/or they dont want others viewing them.

This is GW, I dont wana play Chess or Pacman. If you wanna play chess, invite a friend. Wanna play Pacman, go to Arcade.

And anyways ArenaNet would have to get permission to use Pacman, which is unlikely they will.

completely disagree

surprise is what counts

The devs have said this isn't going to happen for security reasons.

Add a way to rejoin GvG with the same EXACT character, same person, same everything, and provided they were in the game and went linkdead, not disconnected. If all that holds true, I don't see a reason to not be able to rejoin after going linkdead. (assuming Anet can tell the difference between linkdead and a forced disconnect, I don't know the mechanics.

Add a time/date to the Guild Status log of wins/loses. Length of match, kills/death ratio, etc, would be cool too but not as important.

In release if the character limit is still 4 (which is a decent number considering there is no monthly fee) I will be purchasing two accounts to have eight characters. I would like to see an option to "buy" more character slots for the first account, rather than having to switch accounts every time and to save me from hordeing mass copies of Guild Wars. Not to mention the fact that I would have to unlock runes, armor, and everything for BOTH accounts. Or at least the option to "merge" accounts to create an eight character account.

Also for the unlocking system. It sounds like a fairly rock-steady system for release. I'm concerned about the grind it might induce though later in the game. If there is no other way to "unlock" say -runes- besides finding and identifying it, then how will I be able to find that "last few runes"? The odds of finding them seem so low that I will have flashbacks to Cow and Mephy runs. You know what I'm talking about.

Add "Practice Challenges" against other guilds that don't affect rank so lower level guilds wont shy away from fighting the higher levels because they will have literally "nothing to lose" that way.

Add a practice Guild Vs Guild for your own guild (probably "instanced" rather than initally at your Guild Hall incase others want to use the real Guild Hall). Not only will this let people test individual characters, builds, etc. It will give them something to do while waiting for a real guild battle. When we started this BWE (IVEX) we could get into games easily. However once we hit the top 10 we were waiting 15-30 minutes for a game. It would be cool to give you something to do during the wait and then send you a message that an opponent was found -click ok to enter the battle- then one of the teams will fight them. It would have to be predetermined which one assuming they are both eight player teams practicing. A 4v4 practice option would be nice too, then allowing those 8 to proceed into a Guild Battle once it one was found.

Add an "in game clock" option so people can cordinate tournaments without messing with Timezones.

Add an organized player initiated tournament option. With brackets, times, etc. A tournament we joined this BWE was difficult to pull off and ended up not going as planned when we had to rely on the forums to figure out what was going on (who won, when the next fight was, etc). Part of it was simply miscommunication and the Guild Challenges not going through (I guess?) but a more organized option would be much appriciated.

While probably already planned, official tournaments upon release besides regular GvG/tombs would be really neat. A full scale one with brackets placing teams who are similar in ranking together. An initial starter fee could be charged with the pot going to the winner.

Many of the top guilds are creating alternate guilds to be able to play. After getting to a certain point on the ladder (Rank 15+ ?), games really take a significant amount of time to find. IVEX waited for about 20-25 minutes for a game. Either the range of fights needs to be broadened and the points awarded for a high ranking guild beating a lower one have to be lessened. Or another more creative fix needs to be put in place. As it stands GvG and the ladder are in need of some serious fixing. I do not have a problem with guilds creating alternate guilds, I have a problem with them feeling they have to.

A thread Aria posted has some good insight about the problem the current system creates.
http://vnboards.ign.com/Guild_Wars_G...0/84514403/?25

Guild hall visitors--Allow other guilds and members to visit your guild hall (with permission) for easy chatting and coordinating of events.

Anything new will be freshly posted from now on.

/post closed

Bring back the skill charm trader and crafter!

- Provide more information about Guild members in the guild window such as current level and current location (if online)

- Not only include chat filters (which everyone is screaming for) but multiple chat windows (for the purpose of having local chat in one window, guild chat in another, etc.)

- Allow autofollow to stay instead instead of it stopping each time the person you are following stops

- I know this has been mentioned but add banks and auction houses/bazaars

I beleave someone said it before. If there could be some way for it to circle to the next enemy when there are many around you that could be great.

If playing a Ranger with a pet wasn't a very good strategy before as some have stated, it's even worse now with the animal companion DP added back in. Granted it was possible to have 8 rangers on a team with 8 pets, but still(hmm, I just had an idea) that animal companion DP at -5 is just to much, I could live with -2.

(Forgot to add, thank you for increasing the amount of names allowed in the friends list).

Chat filters are a necessity, especially for those of us who prefer fighting to dancing. Those who think dancing nearly naked in a game about fighting should be considering a game about Broadway.

Thats really expensive, I think Top's and bottoms should be $1000, Boots $500 and bracers $250 or something like that. Thanks

More community oriented features.

I'd really like to see some sort of searchable in-game player profile system. A profile could list all of a person's characters, the guild they're in, and perhaps have an area for some sort of written background or description as well as a way to list your interests (PvP, Questing, Roleplaying, Socializing, etc.). Profiles would also be an excellent place for players to display their character's accomplishments. Whether recruiting for a guild, or just looking to meet new people to hang out with in-game, It would be an enormous help for someone to be able to find the exact kind of players they're looking for quickly and easily.

A searchable list of guilds would also be nice. Guilds could have a profile system similar to the one for players. It could have their name, tag, banner, ladder info, what they focus on (PvE, PvP, Roleplaying, etc.), a place for a description, a place to display "recruiting" or "not recruiting" and perhaps an "apply" option if the guild is recruiting, to let those wishing to join fill out a form that's sent to the guild leader.

My wife and I played for the first time since the world premier event. Bear in mind, some of these suggestions may be in game and I'm just too much a newb to realize it!

1. There needs to be a way to send a group invite from a friend or guild list. Having to sync up zones and then find each other to group is a bit of a headache.

2. There needs to be a way to target and follow teammates in a friendly area. Again, its a pain in the neck finding people in the middle of a crowded city zone.

3. I'm guessing this will be in by launch, but the music/audio with cut scenes seems pretty underwhleming. There are nice cutscenes which imply a big cinematic experience, but the audio is generally dead.

4. When selling/buying to vendors, it would be nice to have an 'oops' undo type button.

5. In general, it would be nice if the quest log actually kept a log of what the various people said as opposed to just summaries. There are times that a useful detail from the original dialogue doesn't come over to the summary.

6. It would be nice if the quests that are completed (but not yet turned in) would have some visible icon at the opening of the questlog... either greyed out or lined through on the quest title (some form of color coding would probably work best here). That would prevent clicking through each quest trying to find which are done.

7. I like the changes to the UI allowing for customization. I particularly liked changing my action bar and equiment hotkeys to a vertical layout. It would be great if I could change the health, mana, and XP bars to vertical as well.

8. Speaking of UI, the party interface can't be resized to well... Assuming it's going to stay in that rather large, window menu bar enabled format... is there some method to adjust the transparancy at least?

As I mentioned, if any (or most, or all for that matter) are already things you can do, just ignore me as a clueless newbie. It won't stop me from playing if these things can't be done, but it'd sure be nice to see them in game.

Overall I enjoyed the game experience. I'm looking forward to the April event when I should have a bit more time to engage in the gameplay.

Good luck on the next months work!

Ryahl MacBannon
GL Alat-Seldi

I'd like to use translucency levels when customizing my UI

Dont allow Green as a team color in tombs or allow us to change color options so that all enemies are one color and friendlies are another. My eyes aren't good enough to see the differing shades of green but alteast im not color blind .

Well, the idea is simple; add a warning to salavging on rare items. I found a falchion I was going to use today and got excited and accidently used a salvage kit instead of a ID kit. It would save many headaches.

This would probably be too exploitable, especially since you can always fake a linkdead just by pulling out the cable.

Oh, and I rather liked the new character creation screen...

I've played this game this weekend, the ENTIRE weekend (literally at least 6 hours a day for 3 days straight). Overall, i like the game, reminds me a lot of a Dungeon Siege style game, which i enjoyed, but i find a lot of things lacking and in need of definite work... just thought i'd share what i thought should get worked a bit.

1. Equipable items.... In my opinion there is a lacking here. You can only have chest armor, arms, legs and then feet... where are the amulets, rings, helmet, shoulderpads, something like this similar to other games. I feel this kinda limits you severly to the wide selections of choices.

2. Pets... the pets ai is terrible, they attack anything and everything. They need a pet control bar, where u can tell it to attack, stay back, and possibly give it some abilities.

3. More armor choices and bonuses.... seems like my necro's armor all adds basically the same thing and all looks so much alike.... why can't he wear ranger stuff if he's a 1/2 ranger??

4. A MUCH more friendly quest log... where u can abandon, or share quests with a friend if he didn't get one.

5. Friends or allies show up on the map when you go to the overview map... when my friend dies and i'm far away, it can become extremely hard to find him again.

Overall I love the game, tons of fun... these are my suggestions of improvements, what about you guys? Plz tell me you opinion on my suggestions or tell me your own.

I really strongly agree with this. A profile for players would be a nice add-on. Also, don't forget about my making lefty swordsman and archers suggestion!

On another thing, if a person's name was added to the FRIEND list and/or GUILD list and that person logs on as a different character, it will say "Also (insert name here)". If that person deleted his old character, the name will still remain on the friend list. Another person can claim this name. I can't really think of any improvements on this, except maybe automatically changing the name on the friend list and making sure it doesn't say "Also __" anymore after the character is deleted and doesn't exist anymore.

What happened to the mail system? I thought it was helpful and fun.

I've been wondering the same thing. I remember being able to send messages in the WPE, and possibly even E3 that would show up in a little personal mailbox. Why was that taken out? I'd love to see it return. If it's still in-game at all, I haven't been able to find it.

Oh, yes, definitely. I've already mentioned it, a million times, but /invite <username>. And in your friends list/guild member list, along with the options of sending a "whisper", also have an option to send an "invite". I would also like to see the level/jobs/location/district that a friend or guild member is in.

Ex:
Galatea Nereid E/Me10
Ascalon City D5

or something.

PvE Explorable areas and missions:
I can't believe nobody has said anything about this yet in the thread. PvE desperately needs to be rebalanced. It was way too hard this event. And that's a SEVERE understatement. Hopefully other people here will chime in with me on this, because they were in-game.

After you leave pre-searing Ascolon the PvE difficulty increases exponetially. I'm not a great player, but I'm no idiot having played all the missions thus far offered using multiple characters. New players don't even have that experience so I cannot even imagine how frustrating it must have been for first timers who made it 'far'.

A good example would be the mission just before Lion's Arch. I tried all sunday to get a team to succeed, probably 30+ times. I even ran to LA and the Ascalon Settlement on my own to get better armor and skills for my R/Me which I started for this event. It didn't matter; I still could not complete this mission. There were too many enemies using too advanced tactics against teams of players that are A) poorly equipped, B) inexperienced, and C) in an undiverse or lacking group.

I know the focus of this weekend was PvP, but If you do ONE thing before release I strongly suggest taking another look at PvE, especially from the perspective of people who just started playing. I don't know who has been giving ArenaNet feedback to 'balance' PvE like it is now, but my only guess must be that it's alphas who know all the tricks and exactly what to do.

Make PvE not so challenging to the expert, but more fun for the novice. People are going to learn the basics through PvE and acquire what they need to do PvP from it. The 'soft-landing' pre-searing Ascalon is good, but that doesn't mean you make what comes after nearly impossible. Don't assume players are all really smart or always perfectly prepared. /end angry rant :-/

Respawn Hubs:
I suggest making monsters stay away from respawn hubs in wilderness areas, and not multiplying when you die and respawn. I got in a never-ending dieing spree to Wind Riders in the Pockmark Flats and Fire Imps in northern Kryta. That was quite fun.

Item Drops:
Decrease in pre-searing Ascalon unless you want people to leave with a lot of money.

Increase in seared Ascalon if you want people to use crafting materials there and not just wait until Yak's Bend or Lion's Arch.

Definently increase in Shiverpeak wilderness areas, otherwise it's not worth the effort when you get there to explore, especially considering how hard it is using dang henchmen.

Skill Acquiring:
Random skill charmer needs to stay gone, however, SoC needs to be made easier so people won't be so afraid of it. Might be a good idea to explain it better too, I've seen people suggest a quest to learn how to use it.

Quests:
Many of them need better rewards, either considering their difficulty or the time it takes to complete them. 250 EXP is not worth the time it takes to find some dude way out in the middle of nowhere seared Ascalon, though it's not quite as bad when the green arrows work. Many quests also need better explanations of what to do (Geomancer quest 'Activate all three' does not suffice) and where important people are exactly located.

Outfitters:
Many items don't seem to reflect their worth for how much you can sell them for, especially really good unique weapons with modifiers. I also don't think people should be able to buy a kit, use it 24/25 times, then still sell it back for half its value.

Chat:
Desperately need emote filter and a separate dang channel for trading. Either that or create a trading district or collective trade listing interface, but destroy that chat spam immediately please.

Henchmen:
I know nobody cares about them, but I would like to be able to use them at least to solo in wilderness areas. Please for the love of god give them a better skill reprotaire and higher levels. At least have them match your level or that of the enemies outside the outpost. The henches at Serenity Temple are dang level 3 for crying out loud.

I hope I didn't forget anything, and I apologize for being so negative. GW is an extraordinary game that I could see myself playing for a long time, especially if a lot of the common suggestions on the forums get implented for release. I just want it to be as fun and good as possible.

Account Based Map:
Be nice to have your map taken from the account instead of characters. As long as towns have to be entered to be accessed this wouldn't cause much of a problem.
(For example, I reach Town C with Character A, but still can't quick travel to Town C with Character B until I have walked there.)

Item Prices:
The prices of some of craftable gear is just way too darn high and just isn't reasonable. I bought a scalp tattoo using 4 parchment and 150 gold. When I reached Yak's Bend I found the same exact scalp with an extra bonus for the same exact price. That just makes me mad that if I had waited I would have been so much better off.

(Though mentioned infinite times already, I think just about all of us still want an account based bank)

Pet Storage and Selection Option:
Be really great to be able to keep and maintain 1 of every type of pet available in the game. Just have a screen where we can switch to what pet we want to use while in town and view the pet's stats.

Kit Idea:
Make kits Stack (Ie buy 2 salvage kits and you have 1 salvage kit with 50 uses)
Also change the sell-back price to be based on uses left.
(Since salvage kit costs 100 gold, sellback would be 2 gold per a use)

Respawn Areas:
The respawn places should be based on where you enter the map... I walked through Pockmark Flats for about 5 mins then died by accident, next thing I know im on the complete OTHER side of the map. This saved me about 30 mins of game-play atleast... anyhow, I dont like it because it's just not right.
(I entered the Flats from the south-west corner next to Fort Ranik, I was teleported all the way North next to some town which i forgot what it is called.)

I agree with most of this in general, but the main problem I had was with Gung Ho players that wanted to run into every battle with swords swinging.
They don't understand the concept of pulling a few monsters at a time so they can be dealt with on a more even basis. Almost every time I made the attempt at this mission, I ended up with one of these players. The first time I managed to get past this mission the rest of the party just let the guy die and left him there. We weren't going to Res him if he wasn't going to cooperate.

Absolutely 100 percent agree. If you're going to respawn players automatically, they should be allowed a safe zone to get their bearings and prepare for another attempt.

I bought it, but never used it. I have trouble telling what Class a monster is, and therefor whether I can use the thing with that monster. Maybe I'm missing some simple way to tell, if so, let me know.

I agree with this as well. The rewards for some quests were so small that I felt cheated for having done them. And on the Geomancer quest my party touched one of the "three" and the quest was marked as complete, we never even saw the other two.

At the current price for an Expert Salvage Kit, this is the only way it's worth buying. The ID kit was even worse, but they dropped the price to 100 and gave it 20 more uses, so it's not bad anymore.

Even worse, the ones at Grendich Courthouse are also level 3. It's a joke to even consider trying to solo from there. At least outside of the temple I could use them for a while. Outside the Courthouse they were all dead in less than a half minute if we tried to fight anything, and that was with a level 15 Lynx as a damage soak.

I also think there should be Tamers at the beginning of areas that have new animals that can be charmed. It's not too difficult to go back to Ascalon City, but the world is a big place, and it makes sense that there would be more than one Tamer in it.

Whats the point of henchmen, especally a monk henchmen. Do henchmen monks have there own intellegence? Because mine certainly did. While i was killing monsters my monk desired to be a hero and run right into the brawl with monsters. while my fighter stood back watching from afar. my mage and acher were the only two who did there job, and decided to not be lazy, or be a hero.

Why cant we just give our henchmen orders. like:
Keep distance but heal/res, Stay behind players heal/res, attack nearest monster, attack strongest monster, attack weakest monster, use only damaging spells, use only protective spells, use both skills and attack, use only attack, stay close to party, wander if u must, pick up items, dont pick up items, stuff like that.

At least i could tell my henchman what i exactly want him/her to do. ive noticed that the wilds mission isnt based on just hack and slash but also tactics. how can i suceed with a monk thinking its a hero, and a fighter who is nothing more then a coward.

My number 1 suggestion of all time is to improve the server's stability, I experienced a whole lot of lag this time (more than last time), there are many glitches, one of which is an invisible monk during my Guild battle, others are graphic related like sunk into the ground, stepping through rocks, etc.
Other than that add stuff like:
Guildmates fight each other (dueling for a stake maybe?)
More henchmen (where is my necromancer and mesmer?)
A similar to Glad arena but you can pick your team.
Trade between accounts
Auction house
Minimal things like Guild decorations.

IMHO almost everything in the core game is solid... finally. Only some of the external suggestions and tweaks (including the few I made earlier) need to be put in... Except for one major thing.

Friendly AI controls.

It's been said since at least the WPE. The henchmen and pets need, at the minimum, modes to be put in. Attack all, defend (target player), stay behind main group, heal only, and other simple general commands MUST be in the game or the strategy needed to accomplish some of the missions at or slightly below suggested level is not going to be possible and will lead to serious frustration by many players.


I also second the lack of explanation of the Attributes in the KoA area. I've played every event since E34E and I still forget to distribute Attribute points on new characters. There's even suggestions for use of the skills you get as you progress though oddly enough they always point out the benefit of the skill but not the possible negatives, or use such flat language that players end up dying and don't understand why when they followed the suggestion. For example, Frenzy gets new Warriors killed so horribly often because they are told it will attack faster, but the double damage isn't mentioned. Anyway, at least it's there. In the KoA, attributes weren't ever mentioned anywhere. At least pop up a message when the character first levels up and say what they are and how they work (in 30 words or less ).

1.It may be too late to change this, and thats OK, but one thing that really bothers me is the sheer amount of collision detection. I didn't like seeing a bear i wanted to go attack and not being able to jump off the five foot cliff in front of me to go get him, instead i have to walk all the way around and possibly fight stuff I'm not interested in. It made the game feel much more linear (to me at least).

These other problems have to do with what type of player I am so I should explain. In real life none of my friends plays video games. I have a house, I have a mortgage, I have a job, I have kids and a wife .... come to think of it, I have lots of stuff except large amounts of time to do what I want to (which is to play this game of course) I've played all the MMORPGs that have come out and this is by far the best for my type and would be absolutely perfect with the following-







2.I'm finding it very difficult to solo in the PvE because of the great amount of monsters attacking me. If i were to go outside alone, would it be possible for less mobs to spawn? I know there are henchmen but I pride myself on being able to kill things on my own. I've had so many bad experiences with pick-up groups that I refuse to play with them now and I don't have time to dedicate to a guild. Don't force me to group! Thats one thing I absolutely hated about MMORPGs. I'm here for the PvE and light PvP, I would be on of the people who bought every expansion that comes out!


3. Why is there no 1 v 1? Let's face it, you want as many people as possible to play this game right? You could cater to those who want GvG action and players like me who want to just test their build agents someone Else's!

Dont take this the wrong way I love this game!!!!!!!!!