Death Recap Improvements (Suggestion)

[Decayuss.8062]

When scrolling through this forum and discussions, I was honestly expecting something like this posted or established already, but I was shocked to find out that it wasn't.

So as you may have guessed from the title, the thing I want to see an improvement--in fact a major one--in PvP is the death recap feature. Death recap, to me, is something more than just passing the time when you die. It should be a way for a player to look back and see "What just happened so it doesn't happen again," and gradually improve themselves. What separates a good player from a bad one, especially in PvP, is knowing what you're up against. Admittedly, as of right now, I stand more in the middle where I oftentimes have a vague or general idea what I'm up against, or know how to recognize something and counter it. And I want to get better at recognizing what classes do and how to counter them.

Unfortunately, the tool for doing this doesn't exist in the game because of its lackluster death recap. The death recap is something that differs from game to game, but mobas usually get it right--and I think Heroes of the Storm (regardless of what people think of it) has the best death recap by far. What exactly is the death recap in Guild Wars 2 missing that makes it lackluster, however?

Well, in brief: everything.

The only thing that the death recap in this game tells us is what we were hit by, how many times we were hit by it, and how much damage that managed to do. That's it. And even then, the "what were you hit by" is still incredibly vague in itself. All it does is tell you the name of the skill, expecting you to alt-tab out of the game, or do it once you're done, and Google it just to see what the spell is. This isn't THAT big of a problem (I have no problem searching up skills in order to learn more about them), but the issue is that the game itself is acting like it needs to be a secret what another profession does. What I'm suggesting here is the ability to hover over an enemy's skill in the death recap section, and actually see what this spell does; what is its range, what is its damage, what's the COOL DOWN (that's very important), are there any secondary effects? There's so much to know about every skill in Guild Wars 2, it's a bit of a hassle to just die to something, alt tab while in a match, or do it when out of a match, go to Google, search it up, and find all the details on the wiki. But even then, there's no visual as to what it LOOKS like. And there's so many things on the death recap at once, I either need to pick and choose what I want to search up (unless it's just a bunch of conditions, but even then I want to know what gave me those in the first place), or am I expected to start taking notes and record all of it? One of the most important things in Guild Wars 2 PvP is recognizing a skill when someone uses it, and reacting accordingly. It's pretty hard to remember with all of the particle effects what exactly which skill did what when all I get is the name and how many times it hit me, and I need to narrow it down which one I want to search for, and even then it might not be the one that actually killed me.

In addition to this, I would like a death recap that breaks it down more into a timescale: when was a I hit by this spell, how much damage did it do the first time, the second time, and in total. What's the timeline of how I died? How fast did it actually take me to die? How much did I manage to heal off? What kinds of things did I block? I think it's astounding that the game is almost six years old, and the death recap doesn't tell us a single thing about ANY of this in PvP.

The best way to figure out a class in PvP, however, is to play it for yourself and see what you're up against. And I'm not against this idea at all. But there are nine classes in the game, and five character slots unless you buy more. Unless you fork over some dollars and A LOT of time, you're not going to be able to play every class and see what every skill does. This isn't a bad idea, but it sure as heck is a hassle for someone that just wants to know a few things about what they're going up against.

The game itself is seemingly pulling people away from PvP by keeping things so vague and in the dark; the only way you know what a class does is to either play it or you Google it. Again, I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong from this. Playing a class is the definitive best way to learn how to play against it, and there can be a lot of information extracted from people's suggestions, articles, videos, etc. But why does the option of not knowing what a skill does--even if it's brief--exist in the game?

The bare minimum of what I want is the ability to see what skills do. But I certainly hope Arenanet steps their game up and adds more engaging things like timelines, number of times an enemy USED a skill (not hit me with it. That's pretty useless), who did how much damage to you (just because it says I took a lot of damage from burning doesn't mean I know who it came from), and so, so much more. People at Arenanet are smart, I'm certain they can figure it out. But PLEASE, give us PvPers something more.

Let me know what you guys think, or if you have anything else you want to see added on the death recap.

[Crab Fear.1624]

more important stuff to fix ( mesmer)

[Decayuss.8062]

Not really helpful at all.

If you think that Mesmer is broken enough to be fixed, which is fine, everyone has classes they hate or things that they think are broken and deserve to be fixed, that's fine. But there are a lot of things that go into PvP that isn't just map balancing, and I'm certain that Arenanet has multiple teams working on projects. These include balancing (which is what you seem to have an issue with), map making, ranking up, rewards, etc.

There's a lot to go into PvP, and coming on to my thread and saying that something another team does is more important than what I'm suggesting isn't the best argument to make. If Mesmer is that broken, they will fix it. But I'm putting this thread up because I think it needs to be said that a better Death Recap system is needed.

Part of what's so frustrating about Guild Wars 2's PvP is that it's hard for newer people to get into it, or for people that took a break to return because there are new class changes, nerfs, and metas. What's a helpful way to let them get back into it? Let them know what they're going up against/what they're dying to, rather than watching hours of videos and searching around the Internet on forums to try and think about what's been changed, what hasn't, what's important, what isn't, etc.

[Decayuss.8062]

I'm bumping this thread.I would really appreciate some good or real feedback from the community, or even something from Arenanet themselves, either saying that this isn't something they want to address, or that they at least acknowledge that this is an issue in PvP.

[Rumpduree.4360]

While I agree that the death recap function needs some work, you can already achieve a number of the things you've requested with the chat window.Make a new tab and filter it for only incoming damage. When you die you can scroll through it and look at what hit you, how hard and in what order.I generally will use this over the death recap function because as it is now it's basically useless.