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| WARHAMMER: Suggestions for Improvement
This may be wishful thinking on my part, but operating on the assumption that people at Mythic do read these forums, I'd like to help create a consolidated resource that offers solutions and suggestions to WAR's developers towards improving their young MMORPG.
Please try to keep this thread free of "nerf" cries, hyperbole, and exaggerated arguments. It would be best to stick to bugs, issues, and reasonable feature-requests that should be seriously considered by Mythic. This thread exists for general WAR discussion; the purpose of this thread is to gather suggestions in an effort to assist Mythic in making the most refined, most accessible, and most user-friendly MMO they can possibly make.
I'll try to keep this first post updated with suggestions offered within the replies.
Categories
User-Interface A. Macros- Macro functionality needs to be expanded:
a. Permit macros to contain common aliases such as %t (prints the target's name to chat), or %c (prints the target's class to chat), etc.
b. Allow macros to cast an ability. There is no difference between clicking a hotkeyed macro, and clicking the default skill-icon placed on your hotbar. A click is a click. A prime example of a well-done macro system that allows for user-friendly macros whilst not permitting complex scripts can be found in World of Warcraft.
c. Allow macros to have functions such as positional modifiers. An example of such a macro would be as follows:
Code: /w %t "Don't release, rez incoming!"
/cast Rune of Life Such a macro would allow you to hit your hotkey and cast Rune of Life whilst sending a tell to your target to inform them that they are being rezzed.
Another example of a macro that should be supported:
Code: /cast Coordinated-Strike
/cast Hack The above macro would use Coordinated Strike upon keypress, and Hack on a subsequent keypresses (one action per keypress) until Coordinated Strike has refreshed its cooldown, upon which the cycle could repeat. Bare in mind that the above examples are only what macros could be.
Code: /castsequence [reset:alt] Cleave Limb, Lion's Fury The above is yet another example of a macro that meets the requisite "one skill per click" restriction. This macro allows you to assign one hotkey to a macro to execute two abilities in sequence if the macro is pressed twice. This saves valuable hotbar and hotkey real-estate while adhering to macro'ing tenets. The [reset:alt] modifier would allow the user to skip Lion's Fury and restart with Cleave Limb by hitting ALT+# where # represents the hotkey assigned to the macro.
Whether you agree or disagree on how "complicated" a macro should be permitted to be, we can all agree that the current macro system in WAR is entirely devoid of substance.
B. Graphical User Interface & Options- Buffs/Debuffs Display
a. Please improve the displaying of buffs. One solution would be to allow them to be independently moved and scaled. With the current implementation, the buffs clutter the target and player-frames and are difficult to read without scaling the unitframes to obtrusive sizes.
b. Allow us to filter debuffs on a target to show only the debuffs we've applied. - Unitframes
a. Please implement range-finding for the unitframes. It is currently impossible to tell when a party member that is not your current target is out of range or line of sight via the unitframe display.
b. Warband unitframes need a great deal of refinement.
- Chat
a. A user should be able to shift + left mouse click on a name in their chatlog to receive their details (i.e. class, level, location)
b. A user should be able to click on a user's name in the chat window to open the chat input window with the user's name printed into it for easy whispering purposes.
c. A user should be able to shift + click on an item in an open chat input window to generate an item link so that other users can see the item's tooltip.
d. Implement more filters for the Combat Log. At present, there are much too few. A player should be able to recolor/filter the following separately: Player/Enemy attacks (white-damage), Player/Enemy abilities (skill-damage), Player/Enemy Damage over Time abilities, Player Heals received/casted, Player Heals over Time received/casted, Player/Enemy debuffs gained/lost, Player/Enemy buffs/gained lost. Each of these events should be separated.
e. Allow us to filter/color Loot notices separately from Say chat-events.
f. Implement a zone-wide chat channel as well as a faction-wide chat channel. At present, there are only sub-zone chat channels, and the sheer lack of communication gives the game an empty, barren feel that many feel is detrimental to the newbie experience.
g. Allow users to automatically join their custom channels each time they log in.
h. Timestamps are not displaying properly. Currently, even if the timestamp option is toggle on, upon log-ins, the timestamps do not display until you manually detoggle and retoggle the option.
- Allow an option to permit user nameplates to be selectable, resulting in the character being targeted as a result.
- Whilst the community appreciates the efforts Mythic has taken to eliminate goldsellers and the humor of the in-game flavor text when this occurs, please allow us to toggle this pop-up as OFF as having to click OK is obtrusive to our gameplay. UPDATE: This seems to have stopped.
- At present, there are certain UI elements (e.g. the bag frame, the chat frame) that do not remember their relocated positions and continue to reset to their default positions. Please correct this.
- Allow players to resize and relocate the frame in which action-errors (e.g. "Ability not ready!") are displayed.
- Open up the API to allow the addon community to apply their own fonts to the game if desired.
- Allow players to only select NEED on items their class can actually utilize. If the class can not equip an item whilst in the party for which the item dropped, disable the NEED button. You can further refine this by allowing the group leader to toggle this limitation off or on, and/or disable the NEED button for a player whom already has the item in question. UPDATE: Implemented in 1.02 within Scenarios!
- Implement a toggle which allows players to enable or disable sticky-targeting. Currently, if you target anything other than your selected target, even a spot on the ground, you will remove your target. Allow users to change this behavior.
- Allow frames to remember their specific settings. For example, at present, the bagframe's List mode does not recall that I've set its filters to Armor and Weapon only. Its Normal mode does not recall that I've set Bag 3 up to receive all crafting material. Other frames that also need to retain their settings are the Social Pane. It should recall that I've last viewed the Friends tab.
- Please implement the ability to hide all frames if desired. Currently, certain frames can not be hidden. These include Actionbars and Unitframes. I currently use 3 actionbars, but am only given the choice of 2 or 4 actionbars via the Customize Interface options. In order to hide the 4th actionbar, I am forced to inelegantly minimize it to the smallest size possible and tuck it away in a corner because I can not truly hide it.
- Open up the API to allow events to fire a custom sound-effect, if the user desires, via an addon.
- Fix the Hotbar Button list in Key Mapping to follow a true numerical sort, rather than the current sort in which it jumps from Hotbay 1, to 10, to 103. This simply looks unrefined and unpolished.
- Allow addons to register with the Key Mapping interface so that I can map keys of my choosing to addon toggles. For example, if I am using the addon Mini World Map, I'd like to bind the key "Shift + M" to it to toggle it on or off on demand.
- Please allow the client to remember the player's hotbar page settings. Currently, every time I log in to play my Swordmaster, I must switch my buttonpages to what I desire because the client resets them.
- Consider implementing the behaviour of the planB WAR addon as a default feature for the Swordmaster and Black Orc classes.
- Improve the minimap. Group members should have the highest visual priority over everything else. If they are out of range of the minimap, there should be an arrow pointing to them on the minimap circumference. Mailboxes should have a different icon; currently they have the same icon as players on the minimap. Also create a different icon for players that are dead.
- Allow us to change the opacity level of the main map.
- Helm and cloak visibility toggles do not retain their settings upon game exit or zone change. Please fix this issue. The same applies to heraldry toggles; they too are not remembered.
- Please consider allowing players to have their helm and cloak toggles be seen by other players. Currently, only the player sees his character with a helm toggled off. Other players see the helm toggled on.
C. Input - Please improve keybinding support to allow for any key to be bound as desired.
- Please improve mouse support to allow the mousewheel up and down states to be bound.
- Please address the issue with mousebuttons being unresponsive when a mousebutton is pressed while holding another mousebutton (e.g. pressing Mouse Button 3 with holding down the Right Mouse Button to mouselook).
- Add mouse right-click support (particularly with respect to unitframes), allowing the game to permit the creation of click-casting addons similar to Clique. If the idea of an addon supporting this is not palatable, consider placing a default click-casting control setup-menu in the game.
- Add a self-cast toggle to the options menu, permitting self-casting to occur when your chosen modifier is held down or when you right mouse-click on an action button. For those who do not know, self-casting is the ability to cast a spell directly on yourself without the need to switch targets.
- Change mouseclick behaviour so that it target's a player or unitframe when the button is depressed, rather than when the button is released. The former is a more responsive method of mouseclick handling and behaviour players are accustomed to. An example of an addon that seeks to correct this default behavior is mouse button targeting fix.
Player versus Player A. Scenarios- Please fix collision detection. Currently, collision detection causes a warping effect such that an enemy player who has collided into an opposing line will warp approx. 30 feet away after a few seconds. This greatly hurts position-based strategy as well as diminishing the role of tanks / interceptors. This is a critical issue and must be addressed.
- Provide an audio-cue (e.g. a "gong" or "chime") when the Join Scenario window pops-up to provide AFK/alt-tabbed players the ability to know when a scenario is ready to be entered. This would necessitate an option to allow WAR's audio to play in the background when alt-tabbed.
- Allow players to queue for any scenario they qualify for despite their present location. This will further increase scenario queuing and scenario diversity. UPDATE: Implemented in 1.01!
a. Now that this has been implemented, please consider replacing specific Scenario quests with generic Scenario quests found at any hub. Rather than having a player go specifically to Mourkain's Temple to complete a "participation" quest, allow them to visit any Tier 2 scenario and receive credit. Rather than have a player kill 20 players in Tor Anroc, allow them to kill 20 players in any Tier 3 scenario to receive completion credit. This would further increase accessibility and lend true veracity to the queue anywhere claim of WAR. Currently, players are still tied largely to a warcamp in order to queue for a single scenario and reap full quest benefits, due to the specificity of these quests.
- Display the current amount of players waiting in a queue to provide some sort of feedback to the user as to what the likelihood of a scenario beginning would be.
- Allow warbands to queue for scenarios.
- Consider implementing a system to remove AFKers from scenarios. An example of such would be to allow a warband within a scenario to remove a player by vote after they've been AFK for 5 minutes. UPDATE: An anti-AFK system has been implemented in 1.02
- Put class trainers at Warcamps, please. Many players use scenarios as their means of leveling-up, and doing so would improve accessibility and reduce tiresome treks.
- Prohibit players from using their mounts in Tier 2 scenarios.
- Prevent players from leaving a scenario party. Currently, players can earn far more Renown or XP soloing in a scenario, often to the detriment of their team. This behaviour should be discouraged in favor of cooperative play within scenarios.
- Reevaluate the scenario design. There are multiple maps in which the proximity to the objective noticeably favors one faction. Destruction reaches the Relic faster than Order will in most cases at Mourkain's Temple. Destruction reaches the Relic faster than Order will in most cases in Tor Anroc. This must be addressed.
a. A solution this would be to prevent the Bauble/Flag/Objection from spawning until one-minute has elapsed. This seems to be the most efficient solution, as no geometry redesign is necessary. This way, unless a map favors a team absurdly in proximity (unlikely), both teams can reach the spawn-point and partake in an epic battle to determine who gets the first claim. Fun! - Please rethink the interruptions in bauble-pickup. Currently, you can not pick up a bauble if you are DoT'd. Only direct damage should interfere with the bauble pickup.
- Fix the queuing issues. Sometimes one or more members of my group will not get a queue, even though we make sure to re-queue anytime we zone or add/remove a member.
- Please provide an indication of which team has flag in the Scenario Tracker frame. One idea would be to subtly highlight the faction that is carrying the objective.
Player versus Environment A. Public Quests - Allow players to pass on loot they've won in a public quest roll to the next highest roller who did not receive loot. This will alleviate the waste that occurs when people are repeatedly grinding public quests and continuously winning items they've already attained or will not use.
- Allow the user to move or dismiss the Public Quest rewards pop-up dialog.
- Allow the Open Group tooltip to display when entering any Public Quest area.
B. Normal Quests- If you can no longer complete a quest, it should not appear available on the quest giver anymore. Or, allow it to appear, but color its icon grey to indicate to the player that it is no longer available to the player. Examples of such quests: T1 scenario quests when you are level 12, T2 scenario ones when you are T3, etc.
C. Traveling- Please revise the dismounting system when a player is mounted. It is incredibly frustrating to be dismounted by low-level NPCs you've long since outleveled. Dismounting is much too frequent.
- Consider disabling a Chosen's aura whilst mounted. Riding through an NPC camp with the aura on causes the entire camp to aggro.
- Please allow player's to remain mounted once they've crossed a zone line. Currently, the player appears on the other end dismounted.
- Please revise terrain that dismounts players when they should not. There are many areas in the world that dismount players, presumably due to oversight or bugs. Examples include: Steps in the main cities, rocks, certain bridges, etc.
- Please correct the floating-character bug. This often occurs when dismounting (notably when attempting to right-click interactable object while mounted). It also often occurs when zoning.
D. Raids & Dungeons - Currently, when a player crashes in an instance (e.g. Bastion Stairs), they are returned to the start of the zone, regardless of how far in they crashed. This is unacceptable due to the absence of a "Hero Summon" spell and should be corrected. A solution would be to grant players a period of time in which to return to the spot they crashed.
- Instances need to be have their respawn rates revisited. For example, mobs in Bastion Stairs respawn extraordinarily quickly.
- Consider implementing a Hero Summoning spell and/or Summon Stones (a la World of Warcraft) outside major dungeons.
- Consider implementing one-way Flight Masters outside major dungeons that permit a player to fly out from the dungeon area but not to a dungeon area. This would alleviate some of the tedious traveling to and from these dungeons.
Miscellaneous A. Login & Character Select - Please make the Username and Password entry window upon starting WAR to be the focal window when run. This would allow the user to type their information and go. Currently, the player has to select the window first to begin typing their information.
- For the Destruction character select screen, if you make smaller characters before larger characters (e.g. you make a Shaman and then make a Black Orc), the larger character model will hide the smaller character model, making it almost impossible to select. Please correct this; consider forcing Goblin characters to the of the character display.
(more issues to be added)
Last edited by Jayblah; 10-22-2008 at 09:33 PM..
Reason: List updated with more suggestions. Will continue to update as time permits.
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09-25-2008, 01:57 PM
Linear Mode
