Obligatory mic rustle “Hey guys, Mishka here.”
Howdy devs, players, and lurkers of the forums! In 2020 I made my “Looking Forward to 2021” post (Looking forward to 2021), and I wanted to continue the annual tradition 
Mishka’s Wishlist:
NEW TALENT SYSTEM/CLASS REWORK: As is, each class has a meta set of talents. Not just meta, but like, “this is the way to play this class”. Shaman is all Left talents, as is Runemage. Warrior and Paladin have almost no variation whatsoever because the odd talents, for the most part, just aren’t even close to being worth taking. This could be solved by having each class have two very distinct paths. Ranger was done very well with this regarding Precision vs Rapidity (after the balance patch). Bard had a WONDERFUL Talent change (and whoever did that deserves a raise in my opinion!) with the DPS buff tree and the Healing focused tree. Mage has the right idea with True Affliction, but with the absurd nerf to the talent, you won’t see anybody pulling over 35k with a +6 Legendary wand. Playing Shaman with a base 30 mask and just clapping with one hand gives me over 35k. Having True Affliction buffed back to where it was would give variety to mages and potentially lessen the fireball spam meta we see. Warriors getting a DPS increase for unequipping their shield would stop the constant “give us SAO sword smack kill class” requests and finally end the debate about whether or not melee DPS is viable in the game. If it works, awesome, new variety to play with. If it doesn’t, nothing has changed except useless talents got replaced by other useless talents
I asked for this in 2020, and the Bard rework, again, was PHENOMENAL! Here’s to hoping we see that continue with the other classes
DUNGEON QUEUE AGGRO SYSTEM: It would greatly benefit the community if the aggro system in Dungeon Queues was looked at and reworked. Even with the scaling of dungeons, a non-leveled tank has no hope to hold aggro against a higher level DPS class. This is especially prevalent when you’ve got something like a level 10 Paladin and a fully kitted, tiled 30+6 mage blasting 90+k. This can lead to frustration with newer tanks/healers, and frustration with higher level DPS because nobody is able to do their job correctly when a DPS pulls. As an end-game DPS player I have to either wait 45+ seconds into a boss fight (and that leads to people asking why I’m not helping) or severely crippling my damage to ensure I don’t pull (and….I usually end up pulling regardless).
This was mentioned a few times by devs in 2020 during in-person conversations, and I know the aggro system can be changed because it was done during the DPS balance testing What I don’t know is how much work and math and effort to ensure it’s balanced properly with scaling so a level 10 Tank isn’t completely useless in a dungeon queue. As is, though, early level tanks don’t get to practice and learn rotations because there’s nothing they can do to hold aggro 
RANGER INTERRUPT: Currently Rangers have two options for interrupts: Our trap (which requires us to get MUCH closer than we normally like) and our Charged Arrow (which is a HUGE portion of our DPS). Currently, the Charged Arrow does damage first, and then interrupts. On a Link Shield caster, this means that if the interrupt falls on us, we’re losing a significant amount of damage because the Link Shield eats our charged arrow damage and negates it, THEN interrupts the shield and removes it. This isn’t the case for Scoundrel, Mage, Musketeer, Shaman, Paladin, or Bard (may need to double check each of those). If we can get the interrupt to apply first, that would be amazing. This has been requested for quite some time, and it really sucks that I have to destroy my rotation and tiles for the sake of getting a single interrupt if my party can’t get it themselves.
Not to mention if you’re playing solo and fighting enemies, you’re essentially shafted if an enemy needs an interrupt.
EXTRA CHARACTER SLOTS IN THE CASH SHOP: You get money, I get a character I can play incognito with. Need I say more? 
OFFICIAL SUPPORT FOR INDEX CONTROLLERS: This has been an issue since day 1 with the Index, and everytime a new player with an Index comes in there’s the inevitable question: “Why can’t I turn?” Please. PLEASE. Support Index. There’s a HUGE disadvantage to not being able to turn as a mage, and as the dedicated Affliction mage on Mist Keeper, it SUUUUUUCKS.
HAND LOCATION ON GRABBED ITEMS: It’s hard teaching new players the resurrection ritual because when they grab the scroll in the Library, their hand is literally right in the middle of the scroll. It’s a small thing, but it comes up often enough to where I made an entire post about it before.
PASSIVE DUMMIES: Currently, bards and Musketeers (turret) cannot test their passive damage on dummies. Considering the majority of the Bard is passive play, and the turret is a big part of Musketeer…that really really sucks. Can one of the dummies be considered hostile and aggro’d/in combat until a switch is thrown, a button pressed, an icon clicked?
RUNE PILLARS: Frost 1 is STILL drawn wrong on the rune pillar. We’re going on 4 years with the wrong rune, and countless players being misled because the game tells them to do things wrong. I can send you JPG of the correct rune if necessary. Please. I’m tired of standing in front of that pillar for hours telling new players that no, they’re not doing things wrong, the game is just lying.
PLAYER GENERATED CONTENT : Yea, I know it’s not coming. It’s still on my wishlist <3 Imagine having the creative minds of this community coming together to give us more quests, dungeons, etc. Neverwinter had that implemented quite well with the Foundry system, and Sword Coast Legends (RIP) had a great system as well. Neverwinter Nights/NWN2/Divinity:OS all have player generated content with great success. I know, it’s not going to happen in VR with Orbus because creating a system like that would be so overwhelming as to essentially be another game in and of itself, but it doesn’t stop me from dreaming <3
I end with a quote from Riley himself: “If the game we make doesn’t sell well or fails, so be it. I’d rather make the game I believe in and have it fail than make a game that is just a watered-down copy of other games, or base design decisions on what will appeal to the lowest common denominator.”
I get you, and as somebody who spends equal time among end game players and brand new players, I hope this helps hit that middle ground between “lowest common denominator” and “Here’s my PhD thesis on why this ability needs a 3.62% increase”
That’s my wishlist for 2022. I’ll see you in game!
Happy Hunting.
-Mishka
But it’s always nice to be able to level up more characters. Keeps interest going.
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