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[Temporarily Closed] CDP Topic: Quality of Life Improvements
nitocris83
Member, Cryptic Developer, Administrator Posts: 4,498Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
UPDATE 10/20/2020
After some internal discussion, we would like to reopen this thread to get more feedback on folks' top 3 ideas presented. This phase was initially skipped due to the blending of all the phases but we still believe it is a valuable snapshot in helping guide our proposal.
Phase 3: Top 3 ideas with a single sentence of why for each line item.
Please do not use the re-opened thread to propose new ideas or discuss ones already presented - any posts that isn't "top 3" will be removed.
***********
Greetings Collaborators! We are kicking off a new topic with feedback and insight gained in the CDP CDP. Because of this, the format for this CDP will be slightly different.
Per community vote, the topic chosen is Quality of Life (QoL) Improvements. Examples of QoL areas in game development include (but are not limited to):
Guidelines
Due to potential variance on perspectives for this topic, we ask that your response include the following:
Description and Goal: What is the feedback and what would it accomplish.
Area of Impact: Describe what area of the game this would impact such as graphics/visuals, ease of use, non-gameplay mechanics, etc.
Risks & Concerns: What problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback.
Please try to keep your comment to 400 words (spoiler functionality can be used if you wish to provide more detail). For ease of reading and feedback gathering, we urge folks to avoid “walls of text” and instead ensure there is clarity, cohesion, and focus.
We will be breaking this topic into Phases, with each Phase being added to the thread title.
Phase 1: Posting ideas and related questions (not discussions).
Phase 2: Discussions (not arguments!) of proposed ideas from Phase 1
Phase 3: Top 3 ideas with a single sentence of why for each line item.
Thread will be temporarily closed after each phase to allow for everyone to catch up. As a reminder, off-topic threads will be removed to avoid clutter and distractions.
After some internal discussion, we would like to reopen this thread to get more feedback on folks' top 3 ideas presented. This phase was initially skipped due to the blending of all the phases but we still believe it is a valuable snapshot in helping guide our proposal.
Phase 3: Top 3 ideas with a single sentence of why for each line item.
Please do not use the re-opened thread to propose new ideas or discuss ones already presented - any posts that isn't "top 3" will be removed.
***********
Greetings Collaborators! We are kicking off a new topic with feedback and insight gained in the CDP CDP. Because of this, the format for this CDP will be slightly different.
Per community vote, the topic chosen is Quality of Life (QoL) Improvements. Examples of QoL areas in game development include (but are not limited to):
- Display options for the character journal.
- Inventory management improvements.
- Streamlining mission flow in a zone.
Guidelines
Due to potential variance on perspectives for this topic, we ask that your response include the following:
Description and Goal: What is the feedback and what would it accomplish.
Area of Impact: Describe what area of the game this would impact such as graphics/visuals, ease of use, non-gameplay mechanics, etc.
Risks & Concerns: What problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback.
Please try to keep your comment to 400 words (spoiler functionality can be used if you wish to provide more detail). For ease of reading and feedback gathering, we urge folks to avoid “walls of text” and instead ensure there is clarity, cohesion, and focus.
We will be breaking this topic into Phases, with each Phase being added to the thread title.
Phase 1: Posting ideas and related questions (not discussions).
Phase 2: Discussions (not arguments!) of proposed ideas from Phase 1
Phase 3: Top 3 ideas with a single sentence of why for each line item.
Thread will be temporarily closed after each phase to allow for everyone to catch up. As a reminder, off-topic threads will be removed to avoid clutter and distractions.
Post edited by nitocris83 on
Tagged:
6
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Idea #1 Make special inventory bag sizes more realistic.
The size of the Material Satchel is totally unrealistic. It is not large enough to hold even one stack of every material (partly because of regular and +1 versions of crafting materials), which forces crafters to use various inconvenient measures, such as using the mail system as secondary storage, or have alts whose only purpose in life is to hold lesser-used materials for the primary crafter. If the size of the material satchel was increased by 50-70 slots, this inconvenience could be avoided. (On the flip side, the fashion item bag size is excessive, now that we can convert fashion items to apperance items. In fact, the fashion bag as such is kind-of unnecessary.Area of impact: Inventory management.
The effect of this depends on what you do about crafting in the future...it is not relevant if crafting stays useless. I do not see any special risks if this is implemented.
Idea #2 Get rid of all BtC items when a BtA version exists
My bank is full of things like BtC Enchanting stones and BtA Enchanting stones, BtC preservation wards and BtA preservation wards. This serves no useful purpose, and converting all such btC items to BtA would help players by freeing up bank slotsAreas of impact: Inventory, refinement.
Effect whould generally be positive and reduce the need for annoying workarounds. No obvious risks.
Idea #3. Get rid of BtC in most cases
I would like to see BtC drops removed in most cases, except when they are character-specific quest rewards. A good example is Alyssa's boxes (as I have mentioned before, getting BtC weapon transmutes for the wrong class feels like a slap in the face) and vanity pets from various sources. Making all such items BtA instead of BtC would make receiving duplicates less frustrating and would encourage people to play their alts more.Area of impact: Inventory, general gameplay.:
The effect should generally be positive....no significant system impact, and no obvious risks. Note that I am only talking about items that drop as BtC - not items that bind to character when equipped...those are fine - I am just asking for more flexibility in moving misc. items to appropriate alts when they are received.
Why? To make it easier to keep up with nerfs. (and to occasionally fill a needed role)
Idea #4 Add a specific bag for quest items.
Quest items tend to clutter up inventories of players, and they really do not need to access those items or interact with them, which makes it somewhat pointless to have them take up space in the primary bags.Area of impact: UI, gameplay.
The drawbacks of this is that this might reduce the need for bags, and thus reduce bag sales. Also, care is needed to ensure that the special bag is large enough.
Idea #5 Show companion bonus powers more clearly
I find it annoying how hard it is to see all the informations for the companions you own - like do they fit in an off/def/utility slot and what bonuses do they give. When I select "Manage all companions" and right-click on a companion, I should see all relevant information on that companion - including the bonus power.Area of impact: UI, companions.
The biggest drawback of this is that is probably quite a bit of work to ensure that this works properly for all companions.
Description and Goal: The healing mark is currently displayed as part of the 3D game scene. This makes it very hard to see because it can become hidden by UI elements like HP/Staminar bars. Convert it to an UI element so that it's position is always "fixed" above the health bars. Additionally, make it also appear as an UI element in the party member list.
Area of Impact: Graphics/visuals and ease of use
Risks & Concerns: I don't think there's any.
Area of Impact: crafting and selling in bulk.
in crafting it would be nice to have a button to immediately craft 10/20/30 time the item, instead of the need to click 10/20/30 times.
same with selling, would be nice to sell thing that don't stack with less click, by selecting them like in a normal computer folder, or by creating a button that says 'sell all the sellable item in bag 1'
Risks & Concerns: i don't see any
Idea #6 Allow checking on server-wide events from anywhere
It would be nice to be able to check on the status of the Rage of Bel or the Blood War from any zone...instead of having to switch to that zone or ask on some chat channel what the current status/progress is.This would involve a minor UI modification - some tab or button you could select to bring up the current statius/progress of such server-wide stuff.
AArea of impact: UI.
Benefits are convenience and time savings....impact and risks should be minor. You could make this a VIP-only feature for that matter.
Description and Goal: There are many stackable items being sold by different game stores that don't show a slider or input field to mass buy, so you need to painstakingly buy one by one. Notable examples include Dread Rings Scripts that can be bought by Onix Fragments in Dread Ring and Elminster's Lunchbox in the Jubilee event store. Making all stackable items have the slider/input field would bring an easier and more consistent experience.
Ideally, this should be automated (i.e. the "store system/library/engine" should always show the slider if the item is stackable), but if something like this is too difficult to implement, "manual" changes would also work, as long as, after fixing the current stores, this is also considered in future stores implemented by the game.
Area of Impact: ease of use.
Risks & Concerns: I don't think there's any.
https://guides.jannenw.info/2020/02/07/how-i-would-go-about-redesigning-neverwinter/#User_Interface
In addition to mentonied here improvements to Auction House interface, it would be nice if Starting Bid, Buyout Price and other similar input fields will show the thousands separators while you're typing a number into them. For example, if I'm typing "1400000", it should shows as "1,400,000" (or "1 400 000"). It will make typing such big number much easier and prevent us from stories like "I accidentally listed my legendary mount for 1.4 mil instead of 14 mil and someone have buyed it momentally".
Risks & Concerns: no one?
Area of Impact: on my first character levelling was a slow process, with the foundry often i started a loooooong quest not even related to the zone, and got little experience, remeber ebow down, 1h to get 1 level.
now we have less quest with a lot of exp, so a lot of zones can be skipped, people rush to lvl 80, then unlock last campaign and play that.
same thing with the campaing, once reached 70 all start undermountain, and the older campaing are done (maybe) after they got carried in the new zones and see that they don't do damage to mob (or quit because they have the item level suggeted for the maps, but can't play in it).
make player forced to play zone, quest, campaing in the right order; at least on your first character.
you can't have player locked on somi for 6 month because they don't like it? make older campaign no more time gated, make them like elemental evil, or undermountain, and keep the quest repetable once comlpeted.
Risks & Concerns: i can foresee a lot of problem, seasoned player and to ones that buyed the campaign completion tokens will not like this, maybe new player will not like to have to play 3 month before reaching last released content.
Idea #7 Allow auto-RP conversion, and auto-vendoring
Gemstones and vendor trash (eh, "treasures", like Priiceless Platinum Bowls) pile up in player inventories. It would be nice to have a setting that allowed any regular gemstone to be auto-converted to RP and any "treasure" to be auto-converted to gold.This should be a VIP-only feature, or at least the auto-vendoring, as this can currently be done through a VIP-only feature (summon profession vendor and sell all trash).
The benefit is time-saving and less full inventory bags. The main drawback is that people might have this enabled when they actually don't mean to - for example if they need specific gemstones for crafting tasks.
Area of Impact: create different tab (like we have now for keys, fashions, etc) to order: gear, refinement item (enchantment, overload, refining stones, mount insignia, gems), consumable (food, potions, altars, kits,invocation bonus ), quest item, personal item (companion, mount, bag from invocation, quartemaster, ardent (or celstial?) coin, genie gift, lockboxes, etc), next to sell item (to put the thing that will be sold at the next vendor --> making a way to sell stuff in bulk)
Risks & Concerns: how to suddivide all the bags you have in the tabs, meaning of the bags with this new system, implementation complexity
Area of Impact: graphic.
Risks & Concerns: none
If someone sells/buys in bulk or just keeps stuff in the mail it will make stuff easier.
- Improve new players level 70 experience
When a new player hits 70 will get hit by a train of campaigns/quests to a point when they open their map all they see is questmarks and don't know where to start.
Maybe add a ''recommed'' sign or something for them to start undermountain before the others so they can get gear for their charaters and at a certain item level (realistic one, not like you need 20k for avernus) they get another message saying you now can go to X area. Or change the quest markers in the world map to different colors (green/yellow - start here, blue - medium difficulty area, orange - tough area for you, red - you will die).
Transfer refinement points option
A character or characters with tons of refinemente points and no use for them could transfer the refinement to another.
Improved Auction House
Auction house is too buggy, sometimes you search for something and it won't find it, or you try to post something and it doesn't.
Improve class sigils
They should be updated , i think this would be a interesting thing for new player to know other classes or at least allow us to convert them into refinement points.
Remove enchants from 1 to 7 and rearrange the others
Rank 8+ enchants are to easy to get now so bellow that doesn't really make sense to have in the game, also update bradda the sage vendor, there are some rip offs there.
Create a slot for enchants not tied to gear
Lets say you wanna use a different armor or weapon for a boss, you won't have to take everything from one weapon to put on the other to take it off again after the boss.
These ones are not really a qol improvement but here it goes anyway
Fix shields
Tired of seeing them float or having a cape going through them when not in combat
Fix appearence for most races
Ears/hair/beards etc clipping through gear (elves, gith hair and beard are bugged with most gear)
Fix dyes on gear
A lot of gear has problems with dyes and some won't even allow to dye certain parts (cough cough primal gear transmutes).
Area of Impact: graphic and ease of play
Risks & Concerns: none
I would like to have a box that can be checked when opening the bank where if I select top, doubleclick an item, this item goes to the personal bank. Likewise, if bottom is selected, the item would move to the shared bank.
I suppose being able to open just the shared bank would also be an option if I want to quickly transfer items there.
Goal:
make playing alts a less unpleasant endeavor, considering each item needs to be dragged over individually
Area of Impact:
A UI change to simplify item transitions or modification to the UI where only one of the bank is opened, for ease-of-use.
Risks & Concerns:
Will have to make sure any change to the UI doesn't result in exploits, such as dupes or people claiming they falsely lost their gear (with or without enchants...).
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Description:
Adding an option where, if I have the gold for it, I do not have to successively provide approval to remove enchants/runestones.
There is also the possibility to revamp the UI to have accessible/visible slots (or a page on its own) where we can just doubleclick to remove whatever is in there, like bondings work atm, but I believe it's more demanding to achieve than the gold check option.
Or maybe even an "unslot all" button could find some use.
Goal:
make playing alts a less unpleasant endeavor
Area of impact:
For the option suggestion: ease-of-use, celerity in transferring from one char to another
For the UI suggestion: ease-of-use, somewhat extensive UI change
Risk and concerns:
For the option suggestion: none if the changes are properly explained and introduced
For the UI suggestion : none
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Description:
Modification to how instance descriptions are laid out to include the stat caps so that people who aren't aware of the maths behind enemy ratings can simply see what they need to achieve in order to maximize their experience in said instance.
Goal:
Alleviate a lot of frustrations from all parties involved.
Area of impact:
just a text upgrade
Risk and concerns:
none
I suppose restrictions to entering the random queues would be a suggestion to look into, but it's a can of worms I can't be bothered opening. It's an easy suggestion for me as I would not be affected by it.
Area of Impact: information
Risks & Concerns: none
Or even better: make a special folder for quest items.
2. Provide the Ability to Upgrade Rank 15 Enchants(Heart Of Fire , 5th Anniversary Enchantment).
3. Chult Hunt Lures and Trophies are currently not stack able they are occupying more inventory space make them stackable.
4. Ability to Use Potions those are not currently equipped to belt slots.
Area of Impact: Character login
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal: When refining it might need 150 prez wards but stacks are at 99. Increase stack size or allow the ability to enter two stacks when refining.
Area of Impact::Refining and stack size
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal:Communication is difficult with Guild mail if sending a similiar message as have to retype entire message. Please include ability to forward Guild mail and also allow for more than one in 24 hours.
Area of Impact:Guild mail
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal: When viewing an item with multiple resources request the ability to click on that resource to see the resources needed. Currently you have to write down the resources and then search for each one to determine the resources for that item. Very time consuming for major items as there are multiple resources needed at each level of crafting.
Area of Impact:Workshop crafting
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal: When searching for companions on the AH its very difficult to determine the category(fighters, creatures, invokers, mystical, and beasts) Please update descriptions to see categories and also have the ability to search for these categories.
Area of Impact: Auction House / companions / search
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal:When viewing Artisans not at level 80 you have no idea what the artisans full stats would be if upgraded. Please include a current and max stats for proficiency and focus so that it would be easier to choose the correct artisan for the workshop
Area of Impact: Workshop Artisans
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal: When traveling and following the sparkle line some zones make it hard to see the sparkle line.
Provide ability to make line thicker and to change color of the line as bright zones are difficult to see.
Area of Impact: Character movement
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal: When using the stronghold map to see open heroics you need to cycle through some quests on the right. Please add all the heroic to the top of the list and also allow ability to minimize all the quests so that they are not viewed.
Area of Impact: Stronghold map and viewing open heroics
Risks & Concerns:None
Description and Goal: Need the ability to see all characters in a trial queue for the healer to identify who to heal and for the tank to identify whom is taking ago.
Area of Impact: Trial Queue list
Risks & Concerns:screen clutter
Description and Goal: Provide an incentive for whomever tends structures in the stronghold (AD, guild marks, currency choice) This would allow new members to have a reason to explore stronghold and to provide additional assistance to the guild.
Area of Impact: Stronghold tending
Risks & Concerns:none
Description and Goal: Provide ability to add armor and weapons to companions and to select which skills companion uses in specific situations.
Please check out the companion / heroes in Guild Wars 1 as and example
Area of Impact: Companion gear and Companion skills
Risks & Concerns:adds another element to the game which has to be balanced
Area of Impact: graphics/visuals, ease of use,
Risks & Concerns: none
Delete all (with no attachments) take all ; Take all auction house (but not other)
Delete all auction house (but not all other)
Universal or automatic grab of sold or returned items. I.e a button you can push that says please open and send all proceeds of sold items across my mail boxes to this toon.
Universal delete all auction house emails that do not have item attached.
Leaderboard (for lack of a better word) to track what you've sold and bought on the ah. being able to track by month would be good too.
A way to search all of your toons for an item without having to visit each one.
a way to consolidate items across all toons without having to visit each one (I.e Search term y, rank 5 check grab all. result all marks of potency rank five have been deposited to the toon you have searched from.
or start with a list of your toons pick one and everything you search for is deposited to that toon space allowing.
the goal is to free up time spent in inventory management to actually play the game. I see no draw backs. There is no way I could anticipate developer drawbacks.
- Either have the option to have all 10 party members on the hud, and thus seeing the aggro bars
- or the ability to see the aggro bar above the persons head, but, ideally have the option to show only at certain color ranges! or prioritize, bring to the front, those that are hotter than the others!
Adjust the Tamed Velociraptor
- either make is so it is trial instance wide, so just 5 ppl in the instance need it to get the max 10k power.
- Or adjust is so we can swap party members from one party to the other without them having to get kicked and re-invited to the instance
- or just change it so that in a trial, everyone is in a party of 10
Have a Dummy in the lobby areas of Zariel and ToMM trials
- For action point generation, instead of leaving the instance to hit a dummy and then returning again.
Make the Healer Marks more visible
- currently it is mostly hidden under the Hp bar of your target when you have Hp bars visually enabled.
Make the Healers Mark easier to Apply
- currently there have been many times when I've tried to apply it and it just doesn't because I don't live in America and thus my ping is usually 200+
- Ideally give the option to bind the application of the mark to another key to solve this issue!
A separate inventory for Quest Items
- it is just annoying to have like a whole bag filled with items which you cannot discard, just for quests!
Switch Enchants with 1 click
- It is very tiresome to have to swap out enchants because of the amount of clicks it takes!
Universal storage for crafting items.
Let crafting items stack to 1000.
At least double space available. +1s did a number on storage space along with all the new items or keep it as it is now with things in their respective bags on their respective characters but let the crafting work bench pull from all toons on account.
Add a bag for items that have been crafted and components that have been crafted. i.e let base things go in one bag, cashmere but once you've altered it it goes into a new bag, so yarn would go in a different bag and a new bag for completed mastercraft items that you've made for sale or trade. (the goal here is to have some reasonable method to organize your crafting mats. it's out of control to find anything)
Let us trade mastercrafter professionals among our own toons. or at least unlock the RNG behind mastercrafter professionals.
goal: allow us to focus on our mastercrafting instead of inventory management. I anticipate no drawbacks
1. Let guilds in alliances switch without having to break up alliance. the reason they are doing this is for discount with this in mind the more sensible (less work option) just give an equal discount as the helm gets to all guilds in alliance.
Goal: It's harder for small guilds to get people who want to help upgrade guilds now that 20's are cheap and plentiful. There is a glut of gh 20's on the market making it very difficult to get people to help with your lower level guild and the people you do get are struggling to gear up. Help the little guilds who are helping neverwinter with it's next generation of hopeful young mass monster murderers...
Drawbacks: none
2. Summonable mimic or mimic in more places in the world to donate to
3. Add more sources of shards of power, adventuring dungeoneering etc. ad a special merchant for it too ala the recruiter.
3b. Add more events that you can summon the special influence vendor for than just jubilee or make him full time
3c, Add a mastercrafting workshop to strongholds.
Stronghold bulletin board:
1.Add a stronghold bulletin board that goes across all strongholds for lf for alliance/Lf guild to go in alliance
2. Use Stronghold bulletin board as a mediated way to trade strongholds for in game goods. *continued at end of document because it's a larger proposal than any of the little blurbs here*
3. Add Alliance only bulletin board where in example, a level 18 can post, "Need someone to help me with quests or dungeons or what not" and someone can answer that bounty and be rewarded with influence or shards and ad for helping lower level toon. (put a time and day or within the hour type component)
3a. Or where a geared toon can post a bulletin that says I'm for hire! The reward they get for helping whatever lower level toon is not paid for by the lower level toon. it is paid for by the system with ad or shards and influence or some combination or something like five juma bags etc.
4. If we have a strong hold we have minions (npc), why can we not summon them to tend our buildings for us every 8 hours, for an ad cost or stronghold food cost or something along those lines?
5. pc has channels they can build, console doesn't. it would be nice to have an alliance officer channel built in.
the goal is to make strongholds a more manageable feature and make it easier and more reasonable to accomplish goals both individually and as an alliance. I don't anticipate drawbacks.
Part 2 Stronghold trades via bulletin board separated because big topic
I.e Someone says I want to to trade my gh 20 with blahblah boons and blah blah blah. Party B says, "way cool. let me meet you and take a look around". They agree on price. They go back to bulletin where guild is posted and use it like a trade button. All R7s who own the guild if not from the same account must sign off on posting for sale.
This trade system allows for ad. It allows for in game items too.
When the trade goes thru all R7's are demoted and or booted and the new owner is inserted.
Allow a tab to let people stay or to remove all Members as part of the trade as well.
Goal: Right now many strongholds are traded for real world money. I think people, ironically, see it as a little safer than the in game system of total trust to strangers) I think this would cut down on illicit activity. it would also add a better tracking method for the developers to track how honestly trades are occurring for stronghold sales. Maybe make this system required to be used for any trading of R7 in a guild. If a guild trade happened with no significant items involved and the two parties in the trade had not been co owners in the guild for some time it might be flagged as a potential cash sale.
This system would also keep guild theft down. I.e if someone wanted to to add someone as a R7 fine. no official trade required. but if that R7 wanted to step down afterwards they'd have to use the system to leave.
The drawback here is people have to demote other r7's to leave alliance and re-enter for guild swaps. But if you made it so guild swaps were unnecessary that wouldn't be such a big issue. Also considering that people do just demote the other R7's instead of actually voting on the issue just getting rid of the vote feature for leaving alliance would also be sensible.