Feedback: Official Forums

[Wuselknusel.4082]

* **Remove the time limit for editing!** *I get that you don't want people to change the content of a post after people have given their feedback on it, but having it time limited is the worst possible solution. If I am creating long posts, I usually want to edit them as my views change or I get new ideas, even months down the line. Now I have to repost my +15k character post every time I want to make a late edit to it.*

* **Add an option to delet posts!** *There may not very many instances you want to delete your post, but if you need to, not having this "feature" really throws you off."*

* **Remove downvotes** *You usually only get upvotes if people agree with your post, which means that they will have probably read it. Downvotes on the other hand are usually not because someone read through your wall of text and after careful consideration, but because the title rubbed someone the wrong way. Downvotes are impulsive and meant to "punish" someone, not a discussion starter.*

* **Move the "Draft saved" message!** *At best integrate it into the site's design. It should be unobstrusive.*

 

I'd love to add more to this list if something comes to my mind later, but you know I wont be able to.

[Boogiepop Void.6473]

Bookmarking is not very useful either. Same issue: If you bookmark, you get notifications FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL RESPONSE instead of a single notification that there have been responses. This completely floods your notifications, for any busy topic. We need single notices.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

> @Wuselknusel.4082 said:

> * **Remove the time limit for editing!** *I get that you don't want people to change the content of a post after people have given their feedback on it, but having it time limited is the worst possible solution. If I am creating long posts, I usually want to edit them as my views change or I get new ideas, even months down the line. Now I have to repost my +15k character post every time I want to make a late edit to it.*

> * **Add an option to delet posts!** *There may not very many instances you want to delete your post, but if you need to, not having this "feature" really throws you off."*

> * **Remove downvotes** *You usually only get upvotes if people agree with your post, which means that they will have probably read it. Downvotes on the other hand are usually not because someone read through your wall of text and after careful consideration, but because the title rubbed someone the wrong way. Downvotes are impulsive and meant to "punish" someone, not a discussion starter.*

> * **Move the "Draft saved" message!** *At best integrate it into the site's design. It should be unobstrusive.*

>

> I'd love to add more to this list if something comes to my mind later, but you know I wont be able to.

 

You certainly _will_ be able to edit it once you meet the Member requirements of 5 posts and 72 hours on the forums.

 

Good luck.

[Doghouse.1562]

> @TheSlothArmada.6709 said:

> I don't know why but the space between each post feels too close.

> You can tell when there is another post, but it doesn't feel like there is enough distinction between each one. . .

 

Observations, for whatever they're worth, from an ex-tester.

 

The problem you're seeing is that, previously, all the posted text was effectively in one long column, with separators between postings, with the other content (names, controls etc.) off to one side or the other. Scanning from one post to the next was visually simple, and it was clear where the break was. Now, all of that extra (usually, extraneous) stuff has been pulled into the same vertical real-estate, meaning that (a) it's continually necessary to visually navigate over it to find the meat of actual posts, and (b) the actual vertical real-estate occupied by post content on the screen has plummeted.

 

As an example of the last point. I just scrolled a little up, more or less at random, and took a look at the page (which had 4 short posts on it):

* Lines of actual post content: 10.

* Arguably-necessary separator lines: 4

* Other material (Members' names, extra separators, buttons I'm almost always going to ignore): 12

 

In other words, almost 50% of the screen content.

 

It got even more stark when I looked at actual screen use, because of the varying font sizes used, and the very generous use of white space. Basically, less than 25% of the (vertical) screen in question was actual post content - the stuff I am normally interested in reading. The rest was taken up with things getting between me and my doing that task. I REALLY don't need to see posters' names displayed on almost 50% of the screen in the biggest type of all, for example.

 

Things aren't so bad when posts get longer, I will admit. But that really doesn't make up for the difficulty when several short posts fall together.

 

Overall, as far as the main use I make of forums (which is scanning actual content) - sorry guys. I know from experience that a lot of work and pride probably went into this, but this is definitely NOT a change for the better. A spiffy new look is one thing - but not at the cost of usability. Eat humble pie, pull the member information and controls back out of line, and let the dog see the rabbit, is my own advice.

[Seyiwaji.4082]

Everything is grey, unpleasant to read.

[Embered.5089]

There's way too much space all throughout the posts--below the usernames, above the text body, under the text body, between posts, between the profile picture and the username...... etc. I also dislike the broken lines between the text bodies. Maybe faint grey, whole lines would be better.

[Arricson Krei.9560]

Please add a way to see how many reactions a person has given (in addition to how many reactions a person has received). It would be interesting to see the ratio of thumbs up and down a person has given out over their forum account lifetime. People who only give thumbs down probably are not fostering a healthy forum environment, as they are more fixated on negatively impacting someone's forum reputation (per se). It's akin to someone posting a disproportionate amount of negative/complaint posts and seldom posting positive posts.

[hugo.4705]

It would be nice to have an option to search only for topics without any replies or only a few ones, just too many interesting topics plunge in darkness instantly!

[Scarran.9845]

Going to be quite blunt about this one....the new forums are a mess. We went from a simple, clean and easy to read forum with a decent dev tracker that you could easily tell what was written at a glance.

 

To the current design which has my eyes drawn to the overly large fonts used especially for member names and the huge spacing and avatars and all the other general fluff surrounding someones post. My eyes should not be drawn to all the clutter on screen and that is the problem with the new layout, it is just full of all this clutter that draws my attention away from what was actually written.

 

Add onto that the new dev tracker is a nightmare to navigate compared to the old one as I never had to go into an actual thread to see what the developer posted, I could quickly see at a glance what was written. That's if you can actually get to the dev post because sometimes it throws out the "whoops error fetching next tracked comment".

[Tashigi.3159]

Nice and easy to navigate on mobile.

Not a fan of it on desktop. Prefer old style more. Would be nice to have a minimalistic skin like the old one as an option.

Also, icons appear stretched on desktop.

[Teraphas.6210]

The mobile version needs more love. Atm it's feeling so restrictive that I am using the full web version.

 

*Can't see which posts are devs unless you memorize every dev username

*can access the dev tracker option (which the tracker itself needs fixed to actually function like the old)

*ability to change avatar thru the mobile version

*better spacing so that any upvote or downvote that achieves 2 digits doesn't force it to wrap to a second line

 

Overall I think these feedback threads would benefit from being split into a web version and mobile version as they do behave different

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

External Links should always be opened in a new tab/window if we use a desktop webbrowser

click->popup->click->new tab

 

[Mikaq.7102]

Very nice face lift compared to old forums. As people have suggested light/darkmode would be nice or perhaps possibility to change between Guild Wars 2/Heart of Thorns/Path of Fire color scheme.

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

Test with filter -> hell

 

Edit -> Filter is gone

 

Seems like a bug.

After the first post hell is filtered with kitten. After editing the post die filter is gone.

 

Edit 3 : After reload the filter is activ again. But why the word h.ell ?

[Gryphon.2875]

> @"Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.2946" said:

> > @Pompeia.5483 said:

> > Obligatory request for dark theme/night mode :)

>

> This is actually a very valid point. White takes more power to generate than black, or even the darker colors. Haven't looked at the mobile site, but if bright white is it will have an impact on battery life.

 

Dark mode definitely requested. Plus, love the new mobile version.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @Teraphas.6210 said:

> The mobile version needs more love. Atm it's feeling so restrictive that I am using the full web version.

>

> *Can't see which posts are devs unless you memorize every dev username

> *can access the dev tracker option (which the tracker itself needs fixed to actually function like the old)

> *ability to change avatar thru the mobile version

> *better spacing so that any upvote or downvote that achieves 2 digits doesn't force it to wrap to a second line

>

> Overall I think these feedback threads would benefit from being split into a web version and mobile version as they do behave different

Mobile still so much better, but to my *horror* I noticed that there is no switch link on the page - none that I found at least. Something I missed? Anyone knows?

 

Both my tablet and and desktop go to the shitty desktop version of the forums. I can live without using the forums on my gaming desktop but I really wanted to use it on the tablet :(

 

[Nutshel.7264]

Can't tell if i did thumb up a post or not - needs indication.

 

Your explicit word filter is annoying and over the top - should not even exist.

[mtpelion.4562]

I dislike the height of the topics when on any of the topic selection pages. The use of the avatars causes the list items to be so large that you can only see a handful per page. This gets especially obnoxious on pages that have several pinned items because you can ONLY see the pinned items unless you scroll down.

[Crinn.7864]

Forum needs a "delete post" button

[alceleniel.3697]

Has been said before but please change the Dev Tracker to like it was before and add a link to access it in the mobile version.

[Cronos.6532]

Gaile-senpai, when will the avatar icons be the same resolution as the images?

[orenwolf.1953]

> @"Jon Olson.8439" said:

> @"elvenswordsmen.3975", @"cephiroth.6182", @"Brandr Skjoldulfr.4810":

>

> The devtracker RSS is already [a thing](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussions/tagged/arenanet.rss). :)

 

The devtracker RSS isn't helpful, though, because unlike the old RSS, it doesn't actually surface the contents of dev posts - it just links to threads, some of which are hundreds of pages long, and basically asks you to go hunting through them for dev posts. :(

[Rising Dusk.2408]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" I wanted to mention a feature the old forums had that the new one doesn't have: the ability to see when you've read a thread's most recent update or not. It's very hard to know which threads I've looked at without this feature. In the old forums it manifested as the title of the thread being greyed out after you'd read the most recent update, whereas topics with new posts would appear in the normal coloration.

[Djinn.9245]

I understand why Anet had to change the forums - there were bugs with the old forums and from what I heard the person who programmed them left Anet and there wasn't enough documentation. However, there are some things I really liked about the old forums that I wish were in the new forums. Here are the biggest items although I'm sure I'll think of more:

 

1. Indication of what I've read. In the old forums, the threads I already read were greyed out. I could tell at-a-glance if new comments had been added because the forum went back to black. I don't prefer the new notifications system. This was true of the forum Categories as well (like "Guildwars 2 Discussion") which would be grey if no new comments had been made in that entire category.

 

2. Indication of which threads I had made a comment in. It was easy to see at-a-glance what threads I had made comments in and I didn't have to go out of my way to bookmark them.

 

Does anyone else miss things about the old forums? I wonder if it is possible to add these features to the new forums?

[icepotato.6037]

The dev tracker isn't as useful as the old one.

In the old forums, I had a page bookmarked that showed the full text of every dev post. This helped me see patch notes immediately, mantainence announcements, and also let me laugh at a few solid burns the dev team landed (In particular when the change to repair costs was made, a player mentioned they _never_ died. John Smith showed up to tell the forums the exact number of times a player died and how much gold they spent repairing armor :astonished: )

In the new forums, there are a few issues:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussions/tagged/arenanet has tags you can click on, but according to the alt text those tags only take you to the _first_ dev post made in a subject. On the old forums, there would be threads with lots of dev participation and I could easily see every post. Now it's much harder.

Those tags also don't work very often. When I click on them, **about 60% of the time**, I get the following:

"Whoops! Error fetching next tracked comment" (https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/roletracker/jump/1931 is the most recent one)