Talked with newbies: here are their game stopping issues and hints

[AmonGwareth]

3) Inability to re-activate tutorials without a hacking/programming ability. You may not realize it, but we noobies WANT the tutorials back after making them go away. The problem is not in us accidentally telling the window to "go away", it's not letting us bring it back via GUI!

Actually, you can bring them back for any window by clicking the ? button. One of the first tutorials explains that.

1) Difficult tutorial activation. Activation range needs to be much larger in some areas, (especially hunting grulets; did you know that if you go down to the end first it won't pop up, even though you are standing right next to deer and grulets?) that way players won't go on a scavenger hunt for it (like me.) Most players won't do this, because they won't realize something's missing.

Which island are you referring to? Skalkaar (as a dragon) or Spirit Isle (as a biped)? Got any other examples?

2) Vague Instructions. It's great that the instructions know what to do, but they don't tell you enough about how to get to the appropriate windows. (the functions are displayed at the windows.) This is a serious thing, players don't know how to do stuff in game. It took me 1h 30min just to figure out how to do the hot keys to do one step. (horizons must be blessed to have a stubborn player like me!) Actually, it was because I didn't know how to equip the silly abilities to do what i needed to do... not good.

How to hot-key abilities was explained in the tutorials. The blue gem (where you can open windows from) is also explained in the tutorials.

I appreciate your feedback, gagatronic0, I really do. And I am all for improving the tutorials wherever we can. However, I do think you prove some of my points here about newbies closing windows and/or ignoring tutorials.

[Armameteus]

There are some aspects of tutorials that can be rather off-putting to most newbies though. I've seen it with a friend I actually introduced to this game, in which she promptly closed the tutorial windows, proceeded to nag the crap out of me for instruction and then actually complain that it wasn't touched on in the game. All I could do was sigh.

I don't consider myself an 'old-school' video game player, but nor do I think of myself as a 'modern gamer' either. More like that niche where I can appreciate both types of games rather somewhat equally. Basically, there are those types out there that are so stubborn when it comes to tutorials (the 'modern' types that want to get into the game as fast as humanly possible) that, if possible, they avoid them like the plague and instead prefer to ask other players about them because it means they're still playing, at the same time that they're getting the game down.

What I'd suggest, if only to help avoid the need for experienced players to repeatedly answer obvious (to those that would have finished the tutorials) questions, the ability to bring up tutorial windows should be easier then the '?' button. Perhaps a log of all tutorials that can be seen in the game and can be activated to 'replay' them, preventing the need to find that one particular window that had that one particular '?' button with that one particular tutorial you're looking for. At least that way, when they get to a point of "What do I do now?", they can just go to their tutorial logs and get one tutorial for what they're looking for at that moment and continue until the next instance of needing education.

That... or go the more extreme route and make the tutorials mandatory. No ability to close the windows, advance the text or even leave the training island (Skaalkar or Spirit Isle) by locking out the portal until the task assigned had been accomplished. Only after seeing the tutorial through to its end one full time could it then be disabled the next time it comes up (if they press the '?' button accidentally or something). I hate to think it, but usually the latter is one of the only ways to get most newbies to educate themselves. It is a tactic used in most MMOs that I've played and, well, it works.

Another minor suggestion would be aesthetic. Speaking from the perspective of the 'modern gamer', most tutorials are very interactive and pleasing to view. The tutorial box is so... stale and foreboding, especially when it opens to a really large wall of text. If there was a way to break it up more, to make it seem less intimidating, I can bet more people would be willing to go through with it.

Also, making that bland blue box more decorative would be a plus. Seeing that thing pop up on the screen is indeed an attention-getter, but in the wrong way. It breaks the immersion of the game because its so blatantly different from any other text box the player sees and really drives home the feeling of "This is a tutorial. Follow these instructions before progressing with the rest of the game." It makes you notice it, yes, but having it better blend into the styles that the rest of the text boxes take on wouldn't be as though it would be missed by the not-so-perceptive of us out there, so long as its 'pop-up' was more noticeable. Like making the window flash as it appears, for instance. You can do it with tabs--they flash and make a little notification sound when there's new text to read. Why not do the same with a whole window?

[Vahrokh]

This is a serious thing, players don't know how to do stuff in game. It took me 1h 30min just to figure out how to do the hot keys to do one step. (horizons must be blessed to have a stubborn player like me!) Actually, it was because I didn't know how to equip the silly abilities to do what i needed to do... not good.

This is what I posted in this thread iirc.

Game has to be challenging because of his content, not because of clunky or strange UI.



Wait, since I am Ancient and old dragons like to rummage old stories, I want to tell a little story that I'd like for Amon to read as well.

(Let's skip the pre-1980 times)
Once upon a time there was DOS and there were text based games called MUDs.
Just to connect to them with an analog modem required in depth technical knowledge. Every documentation was either on paper or in ugly "man pages".
Needless to say, games interfaces did not need to be newbie proof, the few even able to join the game would have all the expertise to overcome UI difficulties.
A consequence of this was that large online games would consist of 120-ish concurrent players.

Jump some years forward, we land in the early 2000s. The early MMOs set the standards, they were the sons of the MUDs. They were a transition between the ancient Homo Technicus and the modern Homo IPad-ensis.
Their interface and game rules reminded their ancestry, their penalties were almost as hard core like the old times. Their UI was the result of tradition vs very limited expressiveness of early Windows (transitioning from DOS itself which in turn came from even more ancient stuff). Even tools and compilers used to make the games were "halfway", for years we had to develop Windows apps using DOS tools.

A very succesful top MMO would claim 15-30k players.

Game publishers (another important factor) were vastly less of an industry and "poor" compared to today, these old names often were former single programmers who "evolved" in company after selling their single handedly artisan crafted games.

Then a next generation of MMOs arrived, Istaria among them. They were *almost* there.

Istaria was so ambitious... so beyond every fiercest imagination, born of a visionary called David Allen.
Not only it was almost technically impossible but it required a "modern pockets" publisher and sadly they did not find it.
After a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong and complicated story I won't bore anyone with (plus Vi current owner Rick was there, reads this forum and could write his POV himself), we ended up with the first "beyond vaporware" release of Horizons: Empire of Istaria.

The whole above blurb is to say: Istaria has its ancestry, it's era, it's like this because at the time things were like that and there was no set standard

Then came the XP era. Not only a Windows XP that broke every record and set new standards, but the whole computer industry started walloping.
Shortly after WoW would arrive and change the MMO panorama, standards and expectations forever, like Windows XP did.

Suddenly, even advanced MMOs like Istaria looked unpolished, clunky, illogical. Suddenly MMO became synonim with "millions of players", suddenly the customer base went vastly beyond the 30k "technical experts" and reached the 10M "regular, zero computer knowledge guys".
Suddenly creating "regular, zero computer knowledge guys" user interfaces became THE MUST. WoW did that and much more, in pure Blizzard tradition of being able to manage the millions like no other.

Others tried to copy WoW and all failed. Some like LOTRO would have a soul of their own and would enjoy their own niche.
Some like Istaria could not do anything. The millions looked at their pre-XP era UI and mechanics and went away.

Why did I hope Amon would read this blurb (and hope will make to the suggestions area later )?

To testify that the "geek era" of technologically experienced players is over.
The material, the physical players qualified to deal with UI / mechanics induced difficulty is not here any more.
The time when a player would consider reading a paper manual, fiddling for an hour with the game controls or specifics and consider this as "part of the challenge of learning the game" is gone.

Either Istaria keeps up or it dies, it's that simple. No amount of new dungeons, no amount of valliant effort, no endless dedication will convince a modern MMO player to bother even getting to that content, they will see the lack of obligatory, DEMANDED, modern mechanisms (UI, gameplay etc.) and will just decline to stay.

I am sure there are 5k playerbase MMOs that happily thrive despite being totally modest and mediocre, just because they are immediate and streamlined to learn and to play.

The missing step, the stumbling block standing between a new, perspective willing modern player and his first paid subscription to Istaria is THE NUMBER ONE issue of this game. Without it, there's no new blood, no future, just a slow and sweet death.

Do we want to die? If not, a modern new player attitude has to be supported. It's not like modern players are stupid - I just look at my 2 old nephew who is easily using cell phone and XBox. With the plethora of competing MMOS, they just won't accept to waste their time with burden, rusty old features and the first 2 hours are the visit card for the whole game.

How to keep the new player glued? I can't and don't want to arrogate myself the right to decide, but I am sure that such player will never see Doom or the T2 revamp if he quits at level 5 because of menial factors.
He wants to see an intro that does not look like made by an 8 old, he will want to feel immersed in the atmosphere maybe with a short voiceover.
He will demand to see a plot slowly develop and keep him engaged. No, just being told to kill 10 beetles won't do! He has to do this but also know that the Gifted need him because of this and that, he has to go explore and report that suspicious new blight area over there (this is actually in game but it ends!) and then he has to report his findings to the next town marshal who will give him a dozen tasks against the WA (mixed with more "kill 10 beetles" given by random NPCs in there).
The player both discovers a world and gets in a story. Story, roleplay, immersion, atmosphere, that's a MMO. But all starts with a compelling story that slowly develops and makes you want to find out what's in the next page.

Hope someone made so far and that this boring wall of text won't be seen as garbage rant because that wasn't my intention. I love Istaria like it's a son.

[gagatronic0]

Well I figured that fuming would get me no where. Instead, let me make some suggestions to help provide solutions for other players problems.

I found that a good way to get someone in a tutorial is to simply ask the player if they would like to learn about <insert aspect here.> for example:

Would you like to learn about combat?

Yes, please tell me!

No, I already know about combat.

Something like this would be very beneficial to newcomers. This would make a great substitution for ignoring *all* of the tutorials. It may seem annoying to some, but this is so much better than falling victim to unintended concequences.

Another thing: When it comes to activation points, do one of two things: 1)make the activation area in the area discribed, not just a point on the road beside it, or 2)make the quest description lead the player to the activation point, not just the "goal area" beside the activation point. Remember, a player can approach an area from anywhere of 360 degrees, and if the goal area itself is not the activation point, then they will not pass through that activation point, which is frustrating. I understand with all the avaliable quests if this takes a couple months, but please do this! The low Istarian population reflects the number of people who were stubborn enough to stay past this.

One final thing, just a neat little tip: Maxon found an ingenious way to make things load faster: Start by loading only polygons (a black sillouette.) That way, the person comes in existance twice as fast. After that, the rest of the textures, shapes, etc. can be loaded in for quality.

I hope this helps, catch you later!

[AmonGwareth]

If you are looking for voice-overs and cut-scenes and stuff then you are playing the wrong MMO. Istaria isn't EVER going to have those folks. We aren't trying to gain ground on WoW or any MMO that cost $100 million or more to make. We're trying to be ourselves and do it well.

I am more than happy to take suggestions on how to help new players get into the game and enjoy it. And I am glad you want to post here and you have lots of ideas. I just want you to realize that most of what you suggest is of the "I want a pony" variety and isn't even remotely feasible for Istaria.

Now, if you have specific suggestions regarding the tutorials about how to improve them then I welcome your feedback. I just wanted to bring things back down to reality for a minute.

The blue-box tutorials and the way they work is what we have and is what we'll have to stick with. That said, there is flexibility in how the tutorials are setup. If there is too much text in a box then we can reduce it by spreading the text out over a few boxes. If something needs to be highlighted we can do that. I see the tutorial triggers issue come up a lot, but rarely is it specified WHICH step of the tutorial its on. Most of them have a 25 meter radius and are set in the middle of the road the player is asked to walk down. But, we can move them around if we know which ones to move. That sort of feedback is good and I encourage it.

[AmonGwareth]

So, I see two specific things out of this discussion that could potentially be worked on and would help the game.

1. Improve the location of tutorial triggers.

2. Find a way to allow players to re-open old tutorials (the ones that aren't tied to specific windows since those can already be re-opened).

[Shian]

2. Didn't we already have this once or do the kiosks not work anymore?

[Akrion]

2. Find a way to allow players to re-open old tutorials (the ones that aren't tied to specific windows since those can already be re-opened).

Something like this could something that would work well with an internal encyclopedia like I suggested elsewhere, or being put into a quest journal. Personally I like Encyclopedia/Wiki style formatting for researching something, so it could just me be.

But if someone wanted to find a specific combat tutorial they could go Encyclopedia -> Tutorials -> Combat -> *Specific combat tutorial*
I'm sure something like an internal encyclopedia could be something you could get assistance from the community with.

[gagatronic0]

...The blue-box tutorials and the way they work is what we have and is what we'll have to stick with. That said, there is flexibility in how the tutorials are setup. If there is too much text in a box then we can reduce it by spreading the text out over a few boxes. If something needs to be highlighted we can do that.

Agreed. On that note, I need to clarify the tutorial interface suggestion on my previous post. That type of message (no need to copy word for word) was meant to be tacked on to the start of each tutorial window when it's been triggered, and remove the tutorial closer aka "don't show this window again." That actually brings up a good idea, even if you can't do the interface described here and earlier, then at least change the wording. New players think it is just for that window, not the whole tutorial. The first time I played, I thought, "I don't want the same tutorial window over and over" (just that one part of the tutorial, not knowing of all the other possible tutorials out there) and clicked on it. However, instead of not telling me how to move over and over, it turned off all tutorial triggers. I had to make a new character to reactivate it, and dump the old because he was now useless.

I see the tutorial triggers issue come up a lot, but rarely is it specified WHICH step of the tutorial its on. Most of them have a 25 meter radius and are set in the middle of the road the player is asked to walk down. But, we can move them around if we know which ones to move. That sort of feedback is good and I encourage it.[/

I will give one specific area for you to get you started. When you are told to hunt for grulets, you are told where they are. However, the trigger area for the combat interface only covers somewhere around the south eastern area of the hunting ground, when the grulet hunting ground actually covers the entire south side of the road. Many players will unintentionally pass this activation point to try to hunt them farther west, and not know how to use their abilities, if they don't unintentionally turn off the tutorial as described above, that is. I didn't realize that the activation point was a static circle, maybe make a custom-shaped trigger / multiple spots for one trigger?

I need to say that the activation point problem not only covers the tutorial, but for most quests as well. Abbreviated instructions in the quest window need to lead them to the opening of the blight chasm in new tristmus during the chest scale aurmor quest, not the blight beyond the objective activation point. Another option is to do away with the road lead and turn it into one step, having the quest window describe how to get there, and the activation point be large enough to cover the blight ruins.

On a different note, I would like to say that Istaria is a good game. It really is. However, Istaria shouldn't just be a "growing" game, it should be an "evolving" game, too. Graphic and performance improvements should always be pioneered, making the game not just get bigger, but better, too. If you were to do that, many people would probably come flocking I give credit where it's due, good job on improving the loot system. However, that was 3 years ago, and sadly, if I'm not mistaken, was the last improvement/innovation, not counting de-bugging. How about something new, like making characters react to the slope of the land a little bit? Just a project idea. (I'm going to post this somewhere better tommorrow, i think. )

Well, I'm gonna go and enjoy some old-fasioned Istaria now, no pun intended. Seriously. Toodles!

[AmonGwareth]

Improving the loot system was not 3 years ago. Its right now.

What type of character were you doing when you refer to the grulets? A dragon or a biped?

Agreed. On that note, I need to clarify the tutorial interface suggestion on my previous post. That type of message (no need to copy word for word) was meant to be tacked on to the start of each tutorial window when it's been triggered, and remove the tutorial closer aka "don't show this window again." That actually brings up a good idea, even if you can't do the interface described here and earlier, then at least change the wording. New players think it is just for that window, not the whole tutorial. The first time I played, I thought, "I don't want the same tutorial window over and over" (just that one part of the tutorial, not knowing of all the other possible tutorials out there) and clicked on it. However, instead of not telling me how to move over and over, it turned off all tutorial triggers. I had to make a new character to reactivate it, and dump the old because he was now useless.

Thank you, that is very constructive feedback.

[gagatronic0]

What type of character were you doing when you refer to the grulets? A dragon or a biped?

It was for a dragon, thank you for asking.

[Armameteus]

I didn't realize that the activation point was a static circle, maybe make a custom-shaped trigger / multiple spots for one trigger?

Kind of tagging my own idea onto the end of this.

If it is possible to change the shape of a tutorial/quest activation point, maybe it's not the size of the point that's the issue because being a static circle means that, in increasing the radius, it could unintentionally mislead the player if it's too large. By overextending the boundary of the activation point, it could cause the player to think they've reached the destination they were told to get to, but are in fact a fair distance away from the 'actual' spot they were intended to be. That said, having an activation point being too small can cause players to miss it, as many have already said.

So, if altering the size isn't going to fix the issue, another way could be to alter the shape of the point instead. If a character is supposed to, say, walk down a road to a certain point before receiving new instruction, instead of the spot being a 'point' to reach, maybe a 'wall' or 'boundary' in which they're to cross could be the activation. That way, even if the player decides to meander off the path because they think it's quicker, they'd still cross that boundary and activate the next step in the sequence.

For instance, the quest dragon players receive from Gerix to head to Chiconis; the activation point for "arriving" is far too secluded. Not small, just in the wrong place. I found the fastest route was to circumvent the road that led to the activation point and instead head into the mountains themselves, past the gaggles of Elm Treants (nearly dying in the process ). I got to Chiconis, but the activation didn't trigger. Needless to say, searching the point out was tedious.

However, instead of simply moving the point or placing multiple ones throughout the landscape at "obvious" entrances, an encompassing 'wall' all the way around the city could solve the "arrival issue". Having it shaped more so than a big circle, but snaking around the landscape just so that, to pass through it, the central city is always within camera view, it would easily tell the player that they've arrived correctly, being able to obviously see the area they were supposed to be in; a landmark like the giant floating island being visible at all times across the length of the 'wall', for instance. This would prevent the need to seek out the activation point(s) if the player decided to be adventurous and take an odd route.

If it can be done, I could see this solving worlds of problems for questers and those going through the tutorials.

[AmonGwareth]

It is not possible to change the shape of the trigger area, unfortunately. It is a point with a radius from that point.

[Armameteus]

It is not possible to change the shape of the trigger area, unfortunately. It is a point with a radius from that point.

Would it be possible to place multiple triggers for the same step of a quest/tutorial with an exceptionally small radius in the formation of a wall in the same manner?

[Vahrokh]

I need to say that the activation point problem not only covers the tutorial, but for most quests as well.

I totally agree with this.


Premise to suggestion:

I noticed Amon (or whoever is reviewing / adding the content) is doing a good job in several "newer" quests. IE at the scout quest given at Delgarath I was finally given *useful* directions to find the various spots.

This in the past would not ever happen, since I'd be sent to "seek the northern emisphere" which is a tad too generic.

But other newer quests are still with insufficient info.


I hate to cheat so I never installed a map pack, it detracts from exploring challenge and expecially a new player should not need it.

This makes me simply unable to complete another quest where you are sent to find those T6 bonus fishes (details in the bugs forum), the text did not hint at anything so I just went to roam the closest seas (exploring a lot of coast).
Not finding them, I asked a guild mate who told me to go Lerena. That's quite of a roam I am supposed to do, for a quest not giving directions!
Later on I took the long travel to there and after 10 minutes of trying I got told in guild (forgot things about Istaria since my last play time) dragons cannot get bonus resources like those T6 fishes. Where is the in game lore / info / reasons that explains that?


Suggestion:

So I got this little idea. Since the scout quest sends text message every area you discover, the same feature could be added to existing starter island and maybe T1 quests: when the obviously un-expert player goes in the right direction a trigger could tell him "hey dude you are quite going to the right direction", expecially for those quests the require the player to go in a precise spot o a road.
This mechanism would also allow for greatly enlarged "spots" so the hint would get to the player even if he's a bit off.


Example: player gets told to go explore for a place on a hill. As he arrives at the hill, the wide radius trigger emits: "This looks like the right hill where to look for %place name%". So the player gets encouraged and will go up and try finding a spot that he *now knows* will be small since he expects a general direction points to a more pinpointed place.

[AmonGwareth]

"Newer quests" means absolutely nothing to me. If you come across a quest with bad directions, report the name of the quest. Otherwise we can't fix it. It simply is not feasible to go through every quest looking for signs that directions might not be good. I say this a lot, but help us help you.

[Dhalin]

One of the things that put me off as a newbie, and I mentioned this in the Suggestions forum already, are clunky controls when it comes to Looting and Targeting.

These are very very very important and should be looked at immediately.

Newer players are going to come from games that allow you to customize how you target, and how you loot. Istaria is the only game I've ever played that does not allow you to heal yourself without losing your current target. The. One. And. Only. Game.

As for looting, are there no simpler ways to do this without expert know-how (installing the setscale command, which considering how bloody important it is, shouldn't it already be installed by default?)

Where's our ability to keybind "cycle nearest enemy"? The code exists in the game (you can even hotkey the stupid thing!) but yet doesn't exist in the keybind list. I read somewhere there's an unsupported work-around that tech-savvy people can do, but that's not acceptable. If a player can mod his game files to get this to work, why can't the devs take 5 minutes and make this happen by default so everyone has it? Same with Setscale. If a player can do it, why can't the devs?

Back to looting... players are coming from games where you kill something, you right click it once, bam, loot appears in your inventory unless it is full. In Istaria, not only are there no visual indicators a mob has loot (I don't expect there to be either -- engine limitations and all), but you have to go through a menu layer AND a button to loot. Count that. One Right Click, Two Left Clicks, to loot. In the middle of Battle oftentimes. After trying to guess which corpse hasn't been looted yet. Istaria also loves the "10 mobs for every player" syndrome when it comes to anything undead, and I just can't be doing that in the heat of battle, nor can I afford a precious hotkey slot for hotkeying select corpse/loot commands. Could we at least have "One Right Click Loots All" option to turn on/off in config for those that don't know how to (or don't want to) make a "select nearest corpse" or whatever that is called hotkey?

Edit: Another looting suggestion:

Add a "Loot All" option in a corpse's right-click menu. That'd get rid of the popup window, and one of the left-clicks at least. Also, a /lootall command for those that use the hotkey method would be nice too.

[gagatronic0]

One of the things that put me off as a newbie, and I mentioned this in the Suggestions forum already, are clunky controls when it comes to Looting and Targeting.

These are very very very important and should be looked at immediately.

Newer players are going to come from games that allow you to customize how you target, and how you loot. Istaria is the only game I've ever played that does not allow you to heal yourself without losing your current target. The. One. And. Only. Game.

I hate to be picky, but there is one game I know of that does this, surprisingly. It happens to be Runescape. When one heals themself (via eating food) they stop attacking their target. The fix here is that there is an option that let's you auto-retaliate when you are attacked. This is a very good feature, and would make an excellent fix if the same idea was applied here. What would happen is that the player would target an enemy that was attacking them, and start a normal attack. If another npc attacked the player (many refer to these kinds as mobs) the auto-retaliate would ignore it untill the character was finished with the other npc. Not to say that the game would take over your character, no - it would just start the initial attack in retaliation. This way, you can heal yourself and get right back in the fight, because the auto-retaliate would target the enemy almost right away. One problem that comes with this, however, is that if you heal yourself while attacking monster A, and then hit by monster B first, you will start attacking monster B. What we have for combat healing right now is considered many players across the board as a "game flaw" and should be fixed (by tweaking) or remedied (by adding a feature, like the suggestion here.) I understand from my limited knowledge of programming that this would not be an easy task, yet one that would make the game much more user friendly. Please look into this and implement it into your "loot system reform" -- there couldn't be a better time to try this!

As for looting, are there no simpler ways to do this without expert know-how (installing the setscale command, which considering how bloody important it is, shouldn't it already be installed by default?)

Where's our ability to keybind "cycle nearest enemy"? The code exists in the game (you can even hotkey the stupid thing!) but yet doesn't exist in the keybind list. I read somewhere there's an unsupported work-around that tech-savvy people can do, but that's not acceptable. If a player can mod his game files to get this to work, why can't the devs take 5 minutes and make this happen by default so everyone has it? Same with Setscale. If a player can do it, why can't the devs?

I'm not sure what you mean by this, You can already "target nearest enemy" via keybind - it says so under the options->keybind menu. However, from what i'm getting, it is true that you cannot CYCLE between enemies via keybind, and adding this to the key bind list is a must-have for efficiency.

...Players are coming from games where you kill something, you right click it once, bam, loot appears in your inventory unless it is full. In Istaria, not only are there no visual indicators a mob has loot (I don't expect there to be either -- engine limitations and all), but you have to go through a menu layer AND a button to loot. Count that. One Right Click, Two Left Clicks, to loot. In the middle of Battle oftentimes. After trying to guess which corpse hasn't been looted yet. Istaria also loves the "10 mobs for every player" syndrome when it comes to anything undead, and I just can't be doing that in the heat of battle, nor can I afford a precious hotkey slot for hotkeying select corpse/loot commands. Could we at least have "One Right Click Loots All" option to turn on/off in config for those that don't know how to (or don't want to) make a "select nearest corpse" or whatever that is called hotkey?

Edit: Another looting suggestion:

Add a "Loot All" option in a corpse's right-click menu. That'd get rid of the popup window, and one of the left-clicks at least. Also, a /lootall command for those that use the hotkey method would be nice too.

I'm going to take this further and add that when a corpse has been 100% looted, it should disappear automatically. If doing this is linked to their respawn, then in order to do this the devs would have to to something huge -- delink the disintegration of a corpse and it's respawn. Instead, keep the respawn timed (like I know it is already) but let it disintegrate if there is no loot. That would solve the confusion problem.

Got to go. Toodles!

[Holth]

Newer players are going to come from games that allow you to customize how you target, and how you loot. Istaria is the only game I've ever played that does not allow you to heal yourself without losing your current target. The. One. And. Only. Game

Dhalin I'm not sure why you find this to be a problem. If you target a mob, whether it be a single pulled mob or in a group, and throw any repeater spell or auto attack with a weapon you stay locked on that target even though it's not still selected, no matter what else you target. You can target yourself, another player or another mob or have no target selected, and as long as you do not stop the auto attack or repeater spell, you will continue to hit that mob.

So you can heal yourself or another and still kill the original mob you had selected. In a group mob fight this is especially helpful because it allows you to:
1. select a mob, throw a repeater bolt, hit auto attack or use an ability that triggers auto attack
2. select yourself and heal yourself
3. select a group member and heal them
4. aquire another target while the first one dies
5. or reaquire the original mob using /cne while you are still hitting it to use any special attacks/abilities to kill it faster

You can bind a keyboard key to target yourself, you can also move and resize your group window to sit right above your hotbar with all your heals on it and just click on a name in the group window, then click the heal.

You can also dedicate a hotkey to /cne and make that hotbar primary so a number key will cycle nearest enemies. I agree that being able to keybind /cne would be convenient but it's not gamebreaking in my opinion.

I have found that Istaria has THE most customizable UI of any game I have ever played.

Thaalia of Order

[Solan]

You can also use a hotkey with the assist command in it while you’re targeting yourself, and it will select your last target.

So you can do…

1 Action Target Self
2 Cast Spell Primal Health V
3 Action Assist

… instant healing and no loss of target.