My first beta weekend. I enjoyed it immensely. Right now I'm suffering from Guild Wars withdrawal. But there were a few things that I thought could make the game better, the first being the most important:
1. It's too difficult to find players within the game. There's too much "Where are you?" and "I can't find you" which takes away from playing time, and makes the game more work and less fun. A party member stops to drop stuff from their inventory to make room for a new item, and suddenly the rest of the party is off the radar. Fustrating. It's also hard to add certain people to your party at places like the Abbey when you can't find them amongst the crowd.
When friends/guild members are online, instead of just saying "online" say their location within the world. If they're at a home site, specify the district. Divide the local area map into sections. So-and-so is in The Catacombs, H5. Then players know exactly where their party members are, and they can say "Meet me at B3." Enemys are red dots. NPCs are green dots. Make players another color. Make pets another color. (This stuff is especially important for Guild Wars, which stresses interaction with other players.)
My other suggestions, in no particular order:
2. I was typing a lot of "Did you do the quest where...?" "You need to speak with... I forget. Go to... er, can't remember." Log completed quests. The name of the quest. Where the quest began. Who gave you the quest. How much XP you earned. Etc. You should be able to see what quests your friends/guild members have completed, so you can instantly know what quests are available to do together.
3. Have the option of turning that arrow ON. Default should be OFF. The arrow makes completing quests way too easy most of the time. No arrow means more free exploration.
4. Practice PVP. Guild members should be able to fine tune their gaming skills by playing against EACH OTHER in training arenas. It would be fun to enter PVP battles against your fellow guild members, and this would help guilds identify weaknesses in their strategies.
5. One person suggested a "follow" function. That's a great idea. Most of the weekend I followed a friend around the game world. It would have been easier on my hands and wrists for the game to just let my character automatically follow hers.
6. I like the idea of random parties. Instead of "Does anyone want to go to...?" you can just add your name to a queue and when three other members join the queue, you're off. A good way to instantly game with new people, and keep the game moving forward. Have the game try to create parties of mixed classes.
7. Instant commands. Make it possible to assign commands/requests like "Wait" "Follow me" "I need a healer" "I need backup" to keys, and if possible, in full audio, rather than text on the screen, which can be easily missed in the middle of combat. (And speaking of sounds, I'd also like more enviromental sounds.)
8. When a party member is casting a spell, have it indicated on the screen somewhere what spell they are casting.
9. Stats at the end of missions and PVP battles. Most kills. Most damage inflicted. Most healing. Most gold found. Most supportive player. Most valuable player. Total time elapsed. Total XP earned.
10. I also liked someone's idea of facial hair. Also, allow tattoos. Pre-made, and custom/imports.
11. Some of the missions are too long, and become too stale. Once you've killed ten groups of Charrs, you don't need to kill another twenty.
12. I played as a Ranger because the appeal of it was having a pet. I didn't like having one fewer skill than my teammates because I was required to have "Charm Animal." Remove the requirement and let Rangers decide when they want their pets to go with them on a quest.
13. More lore. Some of the statues you can click on and see "scriptures" but I didn't get a feeling of a rich world. More towns. More townsfolk to interact with. BUILDINGS TO GO INSIDE.
Yeah, that would be a good start.
-- Bullock
EDIT:
14. Custom skill sets. You can configure your skill bar and organize it the way you want (with skills in the order you need for pulling "combos") then save it with a custom name. Then before battles or exiting into the game world for questing, you can click a button and rotate through your skill sets for the eight you want at that time. This would eliminate a lot of re-configuring and expedite things. (A more valuable feature for players with dozens of skills to sort through.)
15. What about increasing the skills allowed from eight to ten but making the last two "rares" and each only usuable once per PVP match/once per entry into the world? When playing the beta I was thinking "I like the sound of this skill, but I can't afford to equip it at the expense of a skill I *know* already works for me." (This way you could equip two skills to TEST and see what they're like before adding it to your regular eight.) And then, there are other skills that seem fun, but only usuable in rare instances. (Like, as a Ranger, I'm not sure how often I'd use the Barbed Trap. Maybe ONCE per PVP battle?)