The summon Window

[Widget]

I think a good addition to the game would be to add a window separate from the party window that can be minimized, that shows all summoned minions, spirits and pets controlled by the character. Summoned meaning all summons that were not obtained by verata's gaze or aura.
This could help in several ways, so please feel free to comment/ critique

[Wolf]

Thats sounds like a rather good idea. Except they already show pets on your allies section of your party window.

[Grim Daddy]

As already mentioned by Wolf, the pets already appear in the Allies part of the Party Menu, so there’s no point to there.

The spirits cannot be healed, with the exception of using Signet of Creation. Even then, the signet affects everything near it & those creatures affected by it die after 30 seconds. The spirits cannot have enchantments or hexes put on them, which means one can’t use enchantments like Death Nova on a spirit to turn one into a time bomb. This means that there’s not much chance a Ritualist or a Ranger is going to find this of much use.

All of this narrows the list down to controlling minions through Death Magic. Unless you’re taking control of a Flesh Golem (which is usually pretty easy to pick out of a crowd to heal or enchant with something like Death Nova), it’s pretty hard to keep track of them. Since the minions suffer from a constant health degeneration, it has been my bias that ArenaNet’s intention for these creatures to die. This has led me to conclude that such a system would be most beneficial to those that wish to exploit their minions with a Death Nova (or something to that effect) before the minion dies.

At the heart of this, there could be a skill balancing issue: Someone (or some people to be more exact) might exploit such a “Window for Summoned Creatures” (or whatever you want to call it) by simply watching the health bars to their minions & start button mashing Death Nova just before the Soul Reaping kicks in from the minion dying. All the while, their opponent is give a very little of an opportunity to do anything to counter the enchantment that was emplaced on the minion.

Now when it comes to things like balancing out & coordinating a team or knowing an exploit at work when I see one, I’m not anywhere near the skill level of a tight knit group like the KT, so I’d suggest consulting with a couple of them on this or some of the seasoned veterans that keep in touch with them on this site. Or you could ask around on other sites, as well.

[Widget]

I actually have posted it on alot of other forums and have gotten alot of of insight. Pets i can see why they wouldnt need this window, but spirits even tho they cannnot be healed, there are a few spells that affect target spirits, like consume soul, rupture soul, spirit to flesh, and draw spirit. Some of these require spirits to be near allies to be of any use, so it a rit runs near combat casts a spirit and then runs out, if he has attacked anything since then or targeted another party member, he would havve to go back and search for that one spirit. Also in some cases you may have you binding rit ready but you are not sure if you want to cast it yet because a spirit like union may still have enough help to be of use

About the exploitation of the menu, I have pvped a little and actually have tried a minion bomber, and one thing i have noticed, is that most of the time people dont even cast disenchants on minions. Also because of minion AI you cannot tell which targets to go and that is assuming some of the opponents have died in order for you to get minions. But as you said, necro could just sit and wait till his minion is low hp to cast death nova, but it does have a 2 sec casting time. which means...instead of worrying about wich minion has the nova, just interupt the necro like usual interupters do. This might just be me, but since minion bombers are hard to play and are not that common, some people may just have not worried about a strategy against them
T
his is just my observation, so if any veterans would read and comment on this it would be great.

[Grim Daddy]

Could you post the links to the other sites?

The reason I ask this is so that I can learn from the critiques that have been thus far done.

[Widget]

sure

http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=404362

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3052642

http://vnboards.ign.com/guild_wars_general_board/b22740/97182451/p1/?11

http://www.crossingtyria.com/forum/index.php?topic=5380.0

I ahve one In the Guild Hall forums but its down right now, but i try to get it to ya later

[mestre]

To me playing guild wars means fighting the restricted interface, specially if you are calling. You notice it damn hard when you are looking for targets, trying to identify which enemy does what or just cicling to interrupt skills. Stuff to improve the interface as posted in this thread would help, but I feel more is needed to help the ones that fight teams with pets, minions and spirits rather then the teams bringing or creating them. Things do not get better with the bad camera system, which blocks your vision if there are any objects near your character and makes it ankward to look for targets but by cicling, and neither it helps when you are in a map with more than two teams.

The game needs way of cicling though spirits only, teams only, players only. The camera must move freely, regardless of walls and objects near you. If devs believe the game may look ugly at times, than an option should be provided.

[Grim Daddy]

I was not able to gain access to the GWOnline Forums, but I did gain access to the other three and have read them all, as they stand now. If it was just me concerned about this, I wouldn’t be complaining. But since it’s not just me that’s concerned about this, here comes my rants:

You know that the people on the Guru largely consist of PvE players that have little to no consideration or interest for skill balancing. You’re basically talking to the same people who complained to no end, when ArenaNet emplaced the much needed nerf that put a cap on the number of minions that could be made at one time.

You still haven’t addressed the heart of my problem with this, which was a concern on VN Boards & CT Boards.

Here are some things on the VN Boards that I would appreciate for you to take a closer look at:

I don't know how I feel about this.

But it would help MM a lot.
And its only interface
No one is giving them any EXTRA power...

but organization IS power...

Part of the charm of being a good MM is the ability to FIND or KNOW which minnions are doing what/why/and how?
Taking out the guess work or the human experience required seems to even the playing field but does it make MM too easy,
and possibly overpower others with the interface help?

The point is, though, that they're powerful enough with what little control they have. Yeah, it's difficult to keep track of them, but without that difficulty, they'd be way easy to manage and get too much power at their disposal.

Here is something on the CT Boards that I would appreciate for you to take a closer look at:

I've always assumed it was done on purpose, for the same reason I think they don't show you your allies in Alliance Battles, I mean Anet could just as easily make them appear as "allies" or something but they do not. Which makes me assume Anet doesn't want it to be that easy to turn you minions into minion bombs, or being able to quickly through a healing spell at an ally in ABs when they are about to die.

As for this benefiting Ritualist, there wouldn’t be much of a need for them to have a party window in the first place, considering that a Ritualist would only be able to cast 5-6 (maybe 7 spirits but that’s really pushing it) stationary spirits at any given time while still having room for spirit sacrifices. A truly skilled Ritualist will spread their spirits out to get the most out of them. In other words, a skilled Ritualist already knows which spirits he/she is going to sacrifice for the greater good, even before the battle has started or even before he/she has begun preparing the spirits. The key phrase here is skill, which is what ArenaNet advertised their game to be based on.

Sure, there’s a party window for Monks to use. But a skilled Monk is going to have his/her eyes on the battlefield whenever it's possible to have a line of sight, so that he/she can get a grasp of how badly their teammate is getting hit and then administer the proper treatment.

In all of the cases, you have failed to address the skill balancing issues that would ensue, as a result of adding a Summon Window. There’s a reason things like Spirit to Flesh have such powerful abilities: it’s because they require coordination, predetermined conditions (in this case having a spirit nearby), and above all skill to activate. Without this skill that’s involved in Guild Wars, there’d really not be much fun left in the game.

The game doesn’t revolve around summoning & spawning builds, and neither should you. Let’s also not forget that this is a team game, and that there’s no “U” or “I” in team.

Side Note: I may not be as capable to see exploits in team builds as well as other people but I can see exploits in individual builds pretty easily, which are quite possibly some of the most blatant of exploits.

[Sir Ention]

Jiggy is right. Basically, if GW had meant you to see them, they'd be on your party list. And although I never thought about it myself, Grim has a point. That might give a small advantage to minion masters before they die to just throw out an enchant, OR make it alot easier to do singular heals. A small advantage it is, but a small advantage can gain alot of ground(so to speak) in PVP or even in PVE. You also can't argue with Bolgo_The_MADD or Hep_DAoC in that the necromancer is already strong enough...to give it more of a boost may throw it into imbalance and we all know what happens when ANET senses an imbalace. -.-.

The reason I only worry about Necromancers is, Grim has yet another point in that spirits are pretty much isolated.... nothing can touch them but attacks... HOWEVER, it would help you to see spirits die and know when they must be replaced. So although ritualists wont be able to do any healing or enchanting through the board, they will gain a slight advantage, if this ritualist doesn't glance at the condition line often.