[Suggestions]QoL (Quality of Life) Ideas [Merged]

[Sylvi.8372]

Problem: After restarting from checkpoint,

We had to wait several minutes in Nightmare CM fractal

for everyone's downed penalty to go away.

 

Request: Please make the Mistlock Singularity automatically remove the downed penalty.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Sylvi.8372

[senoramor.7534]

I think it'd be super helpful to have a bag specifically for fishing items.  There are a lot of bait and lure options, and being able to more easily organize them would be a pretty nice QoL upgrade.  Bonus points if fish went into the same bag.

 

Thoughts?

[Parasite.5389]

58 minutes ago, senoramor.7534 said:

I think it'd be super helpful to have a bag specifically for fishing items.  There are a lot of bait and lure options, and being able to more easily organize them would be a pretty nice QoL upgrade.  Bonus points if fish went into the same bag.

 

Thoughts?

or simple give them the Consumable tag, so they'll auto sort into a https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Siegemaster's_Satchel

[Khada.8106]

Hello! I hope this is the right place for this post. I've recently in the last year have come back to Guild Wars 2 after a long hiatus and have been having a blast getting back into the game again, but a lot of my circumstances have changed in ways that have really highlighted some inaccessible features of the game. I wasn't sure where to make feature requests or suggestions, but saw that others had done similar posts in this forum! I'll try to organize things logically and neatly by clusters, and I apologize for the large amount of text to come. >.>

Left-Handed Accessibility
Since I've been away from the game, I switched to a more ergonomic split keyboard that has allowed me to rebind my hotkeys for all games to be on the right side of the keyboard, instead of the usual right-handed layout centered around WASD. This has revealed some odd things about GW2 as I've been getting back into things here.

• Cannot Rebind the Mini-Map Ping Tool - Since I use left-handed control setups (right hand on right side of keyboard, left hand using my mouse), I have discovered that the Ping and Drawing Tools for the Minimap are hard-coded to the Left Shift button and cannot be remapped. Looking through the available hotkeys under Control Options, I don't see any ability to rebind the Ping and Drawing Tool from Left Shift. It's rather annoying to have to remove my hand from my movement controls (centered around IJKL) and crossover to the Left Shift button if I want to use these tools.
• Cannot Rebind the Personal Waypoint Mini-Map Tool - same as the above issue with the Ping and Drawing Tools, but with the Personal Waypoint Tool being hard-coded to Left Alt.

UI / Chat Box Accessibility
There's a number of things that I've found with the GW2 chat box that would be nice improvements to have, especially after my experiences playing in FFXIV - both from a usability standpoint for activities such as Roleplaying and from an accessibility standpoint as well.

Chat Box Specific:

• A quirk I've noticed in general - If the "Larger" size for the entire User Interface is chosen (under Graphics Options > Interface Size), all of the text in the entire user interface seems to get blurry / fuzzy - not just the chat box? Unsure if this is just specific to my computer and monitor or not.
• Larger Text Sizes - I struggle to be able to read the text in the chat box, even when set to the largest available size. Additions of larger sizes for the chat box would be really helpful!
  • I've played other games that allow the player to change the text size according to the standard font sizes used for applications like Microsoft Word (aka 12pt, 14pt, etc.) - this would be the most helpful way to add in larger font sizes? Fully realizing that while it sounds like a simple change on paper, it's likely to be more difficult to change in the game's code and back end.
  • I've also noticed that the chat box text size also scales with the Interface Size, so if I want a smaller interface I have to accept a smaller font size - since "Large" Interface Size and "Large" chat box Text Size is larger than "Normal" Interface Size and "Large" Text Size. Perhaps making the scaling of the chat text independent of the Interface Size?
• Ability to change the font used in the chat box - I am slightly dyslexic, and while the font that Guild Wars 2 uses isn't the worst about it there are still times where it is hard for me to distinguish between certain letters and characters. The option to change the font in the chat box to something else of my choosing friendly would be greatly appreciated! Verdana in particular is great for me personally, but may not work for everyone else - so ability to change to a variety of fonts would be awesome.
• Longer post length / character limit in chat - Guild Wars 2 has a pretty low character limit in its chat box. While not necessarily a problem for most use cases, it is particularly noticeable when roleplaying in game and causes posts to need to be split up into multiple posts if you tend to write more descriptively or wordily. Having a larger character limit would alleviate that greatly!
• Ability to highlight and copy text from the chat box - I realize upfront that this might be a security concern because it could enable posting and easier clicking of malicious hyperlinks - so totally understand if this feature won't be added for that reason. However - it would be nice to be able to highlight and copy text from the chat box. I like to have logs and records of stories and roleplays that I write in game with others, usually in the form of just capturing a text log of the scene that I can re-read at a later time. But since Guild Wars 2 does not allow highlighting and copying text from its chat box, it is rather difficult to capture logs of in-game interactions and conversations. There are workarounds like taking screenshots, but those can be cumbersome and quickly take up space on a hard drive.
  • Perhaps a compromise would be the option to enable automatic logging of the chat box? Aka, the game dumps all of the messages from the chat box during a game session into a .txt file that the player could then open and copy from.
• Ability to disable Automatic Post Erasing - This relates to the above feature of not being able to copy from the chat box (in a way). The Guild Wars 2 chat box automatically erases messages in your chat box after a certain amount of time or certain number of individual messages (I haven't figure out which), which can make capturing logs of in game conversations or roleplays frustrating. Because if you don't remember to take screenshots within that limited time frame, previous posts in the scene are deleted and unrecoverable. Could also be addressed with the above side-note of allowing the chat box to dump to a .txt file?
• Chat Box Transparency Slider - Currently the chat box can be displayed or hidden with the "Show / Hide Chat" keybinding, and while helpful and a welcome feature, it would be nice if players could independently change the transparency of the chat box when is shown using the mentioned keybinding? I have my chat box take up a larger amount of screen for a variety of reasons, so being able to have it be see through without hiding most of the messages would be appreciated!
• [NEW] Ability to toggle display of Yellow Alert Text - GW2's chatbox lets you customize and filter the types of messages you can see in a tab - which is great! However I've noticed that in certain maps (looking at you, Silverwastes) there's yellow text alert text that is posted to the chatbox that does not seem to have a toggle in the tab filters. I'm talking about the messages that pop up on your screen to give you information about the map's status with that same alert also getting posted into the chatbox - aka "Amber Sandfall has been lost to the Mordrem.". It's a minor thing, but I love using maps like the Silverwastes for roleplaying because it has some really great set pieces for scenes, but having yellow text messages pop up in the chatbox every 5 seconds that you cannot hide is a bit annoying for both active RPing and for trying to get logs of the scene for later. So, adding the ability to toggle on / off the yellow alert text like pretty much every single other text type in the game would be appreciated!
• [NEW] Ability to change the Text Colors of chatbox categories - It's a small thing, but after playing FFXIV for a while, the ability to change the color of message categories is a really nice feature to have. For example, in GW2 party chat is blue. Currently if you want to change that to a different color, there is no option to do so, whereas in FFXIV I could change the color of party chat to a wide variety of different colors (and funnily enough when I first started playing FFXIV, I used this feature to change my chat colors to align with GW2's to help my brain adapt).
• [NEW] Have posting a message into chat reset the game's idle timer - This is another feature that would be nice to have from the perspective of roleplaying. Currently, GW2 has a roughly 1 hour AFK timer, where if you aren't interacting with the game in that 1 hour it automatically logs you out - which makes sense given how Megaservers / map shards function. However, typing into the chatbox currently doesn't reset that 1 hour AFK timer - so if you've been roleplaying for an hour and you've only been using the chatbox, you'll get a "move or use a skill or be logged out" message. You can obviously just wiggle around your character a bit, but it's still kinda strange that chatting doesn't count as interacting with the game enough for the timer.

General UI:

• Ability to change the scaling for individual UI elements independently - There are some UI elements I would like to have larger, while others I might want to have smaller - having the ability to change the scaling for UI elements regardless of the overall UI size chosen would be appreciated! I'm aware that this feature already exists for certain elements like the Mini-Map, Chat Box, Squad Party, Inventory, etc. - but there's also certain other ones that can't be changed save for with the global Interface Size option (the Content Guide, Skill Bar, Hero Panel, etc.).
• Match the Wallet window size to the Inventory window size - Currently, the Wallet window is set to a particular size regardless of whatever size the player has dragged their inventory to be. Not the biggest issue, but it would be nice to have the two windows match since they kind of function like two different tabs of the same window. It can be obstruct the game world if I want to say look at the wallet and move around at the same time.
• UI Transparency Slider - The UI currently seems to be all solid without any ability to change how opaque or transparent it can be. Adding a slider that allows the player to choose their level of transparency would be lovely!
  • This would be especially nice for edge cases like needing to aim for the Skyscale Fireball mastery ability, but then an NPC dialogue box appears over your character and obstructs the aiming reticle for the fireball and the enemies being aimed at as well.
• Ability to relocate the Party Join / Invite Box - Because I tend to set my UI to larger sizes to make it easier for me to see and parse information, I've noticed that the dialogue box for adding a member to the party will sometimes get hidden behind the chat box. This is particularly noticeable when inside squads and often I don't notice when someone is requesting to join said squad because that Accept / Decline box displays behind chat when I have chat set to Show. Being able to change where this UI element displays would be great!
• Ability to disable the orange help tooltips that pop up automatically - I am referring to the active help boxes that appear when doing certain actions, such as shooting an airborne Kryptis Turret without charging through it with your Skyscale First. The help box was nice the first time, but it continues to pop up every time this happens (or for other things in the game too!) and closing the box while in the middle of combat can be cumbersome.
   
• Ability to change how Personal Buffs and Debuffs are displayed - Guild Wars 2 has a lot of buffs that a character can have at the same time (boons, food + utility, banners, boosters, etc.), but the game only displays the beneficial effects in a straight line across the screen. Often I'll find that the buffs extend so far that they get hidden behind my Compass / Mini-Map and I can no longer tell which buffs I have after a certain point. Being able to change how buffs and debuffs are displayed would be very nice, perhaps after a certain number of buffs are reached, subsequent ones create a new line that stacks above the first line?
• Ability to change how Party Member Buffs and Debuffs are displayed - similar to the above, but for Party Members. I play the game with standard camera controls, so to turn the camera and my character I hold down the right mouse button to drag it. However if a party member has a large number of buffs or boons, they can often extend into the middle of the screen and make it so I cannot drag my camera or even click on specific targets if I happen to click where the boons are displaying - instead the game opens the additional options box for Party Members (Kick, Add Friend, Send Mail, etc.). It's pretty annoying and can interfere with normal gameplay quite a bit.
• Toggle for Numeric Durations for Buffs and Debuffs - I think this is pretty straightforward. As far as I know at the moment, the only way to check for how long a currently applied boon or condition is going to last is by mousing over it or guessing based on the timer bar around the icon. Being able to see a number counting down the time remaining would be really nice!
   
• More controls in the Hero Panel and Equipment Preview windows - Currently the character in these windows is displayed in a static position and can be rotated around by dragging with the mouse, but that is all. Adding the ability to zoom in and out on the character, pan / translate them to a different position would be really nice - especially when it comes to seeing how particular parts of a piece of gear dye.

Camera

• Ability to disable automatic Camera Field of View or Zoom adjustments - this comes into play all the time with things like World Bosses and other large scale fights and meta events. But it would be really nice if I could turn this off and have my camera and zoom levels stay at a consistent place if I want to, especially since lower FoVs and the motion of the camera itself during World Bosses as it zooms out can give me some motion sickness or nausea.
  • Might need to come with the option to allow for manual adjustment of FoV and Zoom to let players reach those higher settings used during World Bosses?

Miscellaneous

• A more complete list of the keybindings in game - I've noticed that there are some hard-coded hotkeys (besides the above mentioned ones for the Mini-Map tools) that can't be changed and can clash with hotkeys for Windows or other programs (Discord, for instance). An example I've noticed is that [Numpad -] appears to be bound to a function that enables or disables map based particle effects (the falling leaves in Inner Nayos for instance)? And looking through the Control Options windows, I have not seen any way to rebind that particular key unless I've misread or missed the option entirely, which is a very distinct possibility. - Discovered that this was something strange with my particular setup - disregard!
• [NEW] Ability to disable auto-sheathing of weapons - As mentioned above, I love to roleplay in GW2 and there's often many times I want to have my character's weapon drawn (combat scenes primarily). However in GW2, your character automatically stows their weapon after like 15 seconds - making it really annoying to keep your weapons out to the point of not bothering that much. The ability to turn auto-sheathing off would be very welcome!
• [NEW] Make Cosmetic Infusion effects able to be toggled without having to remove them from an infusion slot - Pretty straight forward in my opinion - currently cosmetic infusions can't be turned off once placed into a piece of gear, even if you click the checkbox to hide a piece of gear! The only way to "toggle" the effects of cosmetic infusions (and enrichments) is by removing them from your piece of gear entirely. This is problematic because infusions and enrichments have bonus stats of your choice (power, precision, etc.) and while those stat bonuses are minor in the grand scheme of things, it still doesn't feel great to have to choose between having those extra stats or having the cosmetic infusion display on your character.
• [NEW] Add Facial Expression Emotes to the game - After coming back from FFXIV and roleplaying there, I've found that I really miss the /emotes that only affect your character's facial expression. Things like being able to make your character frown, smile, look angry, etc. are really nice to have both for roleplaying and for taking screenshots too! Would love to see GW2 add that here, especially if they make it so that facial expressions can be used in conjunction with regular emotes too, e.g. you can use /readbook and something like /angryface to make your character read a book but look angry while doing so.
• [NEW] Add a Screenshot Tool to the game - Another feature that FFXIV has that I would love to see GW2 get their own version of is a Screenshot Tool. In FFXIV it's called GPose, and it's an awesome built-in tool the developers have added and continue to make additional features for as the game has gone on. For those unfamiliar, such a tool allows you to change camera position and angles, add additional lighting sources to your shot and even change the colors of your lighting, add filters or on screen effects, apply emotes to your character, and probably most importantly - give you the ability to freeze the animations / characters in the shot at the press of a button, letting do things like get a screenshot in the middle of an ability animation for example. GW2 is a gorgeous game with its art style and various locations, but currently taking screenshots of your character, landscapes, etc. can be a bit of a chore - so having a Screenshot Tool would be a very welcome addition to the game!

----------------

I believe that covers everything I've noticed since coming back to the game this year after a long break playing other games. Thank you so much for reading through this long, long post!

Edited January 22 by Khada.8106
Added more QoL improvements and feature requests to the post, denoted by [NEW] at the start of the bullet point.

[Virdo.1540]

Let the squad lieutnants also be able to edit the lfg 

[Glass Hand.7306]

Add Black LIon Salvage KIts to the Astral Rewards.

[Ashantara.8731]

When activated, the Teal Branded Mist item grants the Teal Crystallization effect.

It really would make a beautiful infusion, a perfect addition to the Aurillium infusion. 🥰

So, how about it, dear devs? Been hoping for this for years. 🫠

 

Edit: Why has my thread been merged into the QoL thread???
 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Ashantara.8731

[Farohna.6247]

I love this effect!  Those petals bugged me lol, saved them for a long time before finally selling.  Great suggestion!

[Kandrax.1504]

I really like the game and I'm coming back to it again and again casually but whats always putting me off is the lack of UI addons or just even customizable hotbars.

My problem with it is that since I started playing WoW way back then I always put skills that do a specific thing on a specific button, like charges/gap closers on this, stuns on that, interrupts, instant range attacks, etc. That's not possible in GW2 because even if I'd go all the way and map the keys regardless of their position on the UI to my muscle memory and save them to a template I swap when I swap specs (which is actually the closest ghetto fix to this I have found) a weapon swap will mess me up.

I don't understand why the devs are so dead focused on hardlocking the UI, GW2 is not a tournament-level competitive game, even WoW allows it and that game already is a joke competitive-wise.

So tl;dr I hope that some day they will just add custom hotbars and a spellbook that consolidates all the skills you currently have for you to place them where you want.

[bossdonut.1938]

wow arena tournaments do not allow for addons.

[Zera.9435]

Your skills are tied to the weapon itself. You can't have a sword equipped and then have a separate skill bar with all your other skills that you can use. It seems like you want to be able to use the skills of your other weapons without actually having said weapons equipped. That's not how they designed the skill system, unfortunately for you. The best you can do is customize your utility skills (unless you're a revenant). A hot bar for utility skills might be the only remote possibility, but they probably won't implement that. They don't want players to have access to more than 10 skills on their bar (excluding profession unique skills/abilities) at one time. It's done both for simplicity and ease of balance.

[Randulf.7614]

It was designed to be hardlocked during development specifically by the original team. I'm not sure how easy it is to untangle the legacy code given how notoriously messy and unstable they've said it is

[Kandrax.1504]

24 minutes ago, Zera.9435 said:

Your skills are tied to the weapon itself. You can't have a sword equipped and then have a separate skill bar with all your other skills that you can use. It seems like you want to be able to use the skills of your other weapons without actually having said weapons equipped. That's not how they designed the skill system, unfortunately for you. The best you can do is customize your utility skills (unless you're a revenant). A hot bar for utility skills might be the only remote possibility, but they probably won't implement that. They don't want players to have access to more than 10 skills on their bar (excluding profession unique skills/abilities) at one time. It's done both for simplicity and ease of balance.

I know and that's not what I meant, they could give you hotbars and a book of all the skills that are available to you theoretically, so if my current weapon is a GS and my subset a sword+pistol they could still let me bind those skills but as unavailable until I swap, or at the very least allow repositioning skills within their own UI, so I can put skills that crudely resemble the same things on the same buttons.

[Hallow.7368]

This game DESPERATELY needs a limited form of weak auras built into the game. You shouldn't have to look at your buff bar that's filled with 90 different exp boosting effects or whatever else to know when your, say, untamed ambush is off cd. Not to mention for untamed your pet unleash skill cds are literally hidden from you and the band-aid is that their cool downs come up roughly around the time you have to go in and out of pet unleash for ambush skills.

Honestly now that I'm thinking about it this would only be a band-aid in it's self. The player's hud is just out dated desperately needs to be overhauled for gameplay clarity and a degree of customization in regards to where things are displayed.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

this isn't WoW or any of its billion clones with meme UIs featuring a bazillion skill bars covering 90% of the screen because 'I'm so pro, I have no need to see the game at all.' GW2 was literally made not to be that.

[Kandrax.1504]

2 minutes ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

this isn't WoW or any of its billion clones with meme UIs featuring a bazillion skill bars covering 90% of the screen because 'I'm so pro, I have no need to see the game at all.' GW2 was literally made not to be that.

It's literally only about allowing to reposition the weapon skills on the built-in bar like they already allow with the right-side one. So I can have skills that accomplish the same things on the same button after a swap or build change. No one is talking about leet addons.

[Farohna.6247]

WoW's screen full of sidebars was fine for WoW.  What profession do you find it necessary for here?

[Ashen.2907]

I would enjoy the ability to customize my hotbars, including the ability to have a hotbar of emotes.

[Ashen.2907]

What is Weakauras?

[Hypnotic.9605]

4 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

What is Weakauras?

its a wow addon that lets you make bars and screen effects and the like for whenever you or the target has a specific buff/debuff.

Example: Make a big bar that appears when you have Swiftness and it slowly depletes/refills as the buff wears off or refreshes

For the topic though. I wouldn't mind something like that as a UI option for "Filtered buffs" that could fit in the bottom left right next to elite skill and the map or something, but eh, outside of small endgame spots it wouldn't make a huge difference. For things like the untames cooldowns.... I only really play ENG/Mesmer so wouldn't know about untames problems, but i imagine its a bit like swapping to flamethrower only to find CDs but having a CD on being able to check it.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Hypnotic.9605

[SpyderArachnid.5619]

The UI definitely needs an overhaul. They are trying to cram way too much into it, that it is packed and messy.

I used to use the glowing cursor effect so I could find my cursor in big battles. But then I realized how hard it is to click on those tiny little up-arrow menus to access my heart, fishing, novelties, etc. I always end up clicking my mastery bar or the button itself instead of the up-arrow menu. It's just so small and smashed in there. Had to turn the cursor glow off so I could click on stuff, and even then, with my old eyes, it is hard clicking on that tiny up-arrow menu.

Like WeakAuras, having a buff tracker of sorts would be ideal as well. I don't want to constantly have to keep highlighting my buffs to see the timers on them, especially when they keep jumping around and are mixed with the debuffs as well. It's not fun. Separate the debuffs and buffs at least, but a tracking system would be better that actually shows the timers on them.

Honestly overall, I just want the UI to be customizable. Allow us to move things and scale them to our liking. This would solve a ton of UI issues to just let us customize it.

[Ashen.2907]

1 minute ago, Hypnotic.9605 said:

its a wow addon that lets you make bars and screen effects and the like for whenever you or the target has a specific buff/debuff.

Example: Make a big bar that appears when you have Swiftness and it slowly depletes/refills as the buff wears off or refreshes

Interesting. Not a huge fan of onscreen UI clutter, but also not a fan of the current buff/boon/condi bar either.  The ability to add, selectively, better means of tracking those buffs/debuffs that matter most to me could be nice.

[bossdonut.1938]

6 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

What is Weakauras?

a wow addon that plays the game for you.

 

lol

[Hypnotic.9605]

Just now, bossdonut.1938 said:

a wow addon that plays the game for you.

Yeah, there is a LOT that you can do with WA, but keeping track of certain buffs/debuffs is the main idea lol

[Virdo.1540]

please add a tooltip to the green prophet shards in the currency list, that shows how many you already got this week (like 20/300, similar with magnetite shards)