Party preparation screen...

Hi, just joined the forum to put forward a suggestion for this superb game. I checked the forum several pages deep and didn't see a mention of it, so i'm sorry if it's already been suggested.

OK, what this game desperately needs is some sort of preparation screen where you can view the builds of every player in your party. Each player would have a horizontal strip with all their skill icons side by side and their weapon sets visible also.

Not only that, but there should be a ready button, a green tick icon if you will, which players can click when they are prepared. For regular quests, it would be more of a reference to show that everyone is ready, for missions is would be required that everyone is ready before it starts.

Advantages:

• Cross party planning is now possible, as players can easily pick builds that compliment each other.
• Easy to help out newbies, make suggestions to improve their build.
• Spot troublemakers, i.e blatantly aggressive skillset with no defensive skills on a low lvl player; several capture signets in place of skills; etc.
• Easy to ensure that everyone has res signets before the start of pvp match.
• Would help to reduce the number of failed missions due to poor cohesion.
• Ensures that everyone is prepared before a difficult mission starts.
• Saves a lot of wasted time.

Disadvantages

• Some people might start enforcing skill sets upon people before the start of missions, i.e bring a res sig or we'll kick you.
• Possible harrassment of newbies with bad setups/weapons.

There may be other disadvantages to this, but I think the pros far outweigh the cons. Having a cohesive party is far better than one with 8 different random builds - and issues can be resolved before the mission even gets underway.

I don't know if I like people viewing my skill bar. It's sort of like them seeing me in my underwear. Generally speaking, I will give a general idea of what I've got on my belt and/or what my character is---then I will ask for skill requests. I particularly do this with my Me/Mo since there are a wealth of different options for her to go: Purely interrupting, healing, etc. Perhaps allowing your skill bar to be viewed could be made optional?

I do like the party prep screen though, in general.

I think it sounds good; for those who are freakily secretive you could have two checkboxes - one that said "ready" and one that said "show skills" - in fact, it could just say "refresh skills" and you could simply not click it to not reveal your skills.

Personally I can't see why anyone would bother hiding their build - there are so many out there and so many players that your twin is probably around the corner. It could lead to much more interesting discussions and might improve your build. Anyway, good idea, I like it.

*likes to keep her skivvies under cover around strangers*

or even expand the current party window a little bit. instead of using the bar system, just go straight to numbers, that way we can see a person's health and energy as they go up or down...

I agree with the party build screen, right now its really hard to put a party together.
you could raise a litle flag, signal saying your seeking a party. also different collors could mean thing. so you can see who looking to do what.

Thanks for the replies guys: basically all i'm looking for is something to simplify the whole party process. It's no wonder people are compelled to go through the entire game with henchmen - it's a few clicks and you're away. Getting a good party together is much harder than it should be imo.

Someone had suggested something like this a while ago in this very forum, I believe. He even posted a mock-up picture to illustrate what it'd be like. It seems like an extremely good idea to me, specially being able to check others' skills. It would definitely save time when preparing a party, not to mention it'd make it easier to try to help others.

Of course, we'd have people bitching at others because of their skills and a lot of parties would fall apart - but those parties were doomed from the start anyway.

Edit: Found it... http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=29656

I don't mind showing skills too, since they're on the whole considerably more relevant to what you're going to be doing and how you're going to do it than your equipment. Doesn't seem like you can accomplish much in the way of group-level planning without knowing what skills everyone is bringing. If my monk ends up partied with another monk I usually check anyways to see what skills they're bringing, make sure all bases are properly covered("ok, you spam fast cheap heals and do hex removal and also keep heal party around for when the whole team is in trouble, I'll throw down healing seed and breezes and mend ailments, and we'll both use some kinda big heavy heal if someone is getting spiked"). Maybe not an essential thing for most PUGs, but for PvP and maybe missions it would definitely be nice.

Eder:

That's it! that is almost 100% what I was thinking of, with only the addition of a ready icon a small space to the right from each persons skillset.

Please ANet? This has got to be one of the easiest suggestions to implement ever...

it's a good suggestion. It has flaws, but in general it's a good suggestion. As an easy fix to the I'm Ready button, how about in the party window our life bars are grey (like when loading or left) and you click your own to make it red. When the whole party is red, the whole team knows they're ready. It shouldn't inhibit "start mission" but at least this way when people complain after you say you don't have your skills equipped you can say "I didn't click I'm Ready"

I like the grey bar idea, that would be a pretty easy change to make i'd have thought. However, i'd have to argue that it should inhibit the start mission, because you want to ensure that EVERYONE is ready before starting, if somebody is holding up the group then just kick them - they would only idle during the mission anyway.

For quests, it would just act as a reference for the entire party.

There can be option to "hide your skill bar" so other cannot see it.

Or maybe it can be only Guild feature.

Hm, not a lot of support for this idea, I'd have thought people would jump at the chance to streamline party creation - especially the pvp'ers. Ah well.