Guild Wars 2

I love the concept of a global commander, I’ll get that out of the way before I get down to what I consider gripes and complaints. Secondly, I have the Commander’s Compendium on my character, so these claims are not biased by jealousy. I’ve spent the last week leading my server through several siege based events, ending in quite possibly the best mass PvP experience I’ve ever had.

There are a few problems I have with it. First, the method of which you attain the ability to become a Commander. Second, the problems that arise with multiple Commanders. Third, the control scheme that doesn’t exist with squads. Last, some personal opinions of the concept I’ll go over.

Currently the method of becoming a Commander is to gather 100g and buy a book. There is no WvW involved, no approval system, nothing. Get 100g, and you too can be trusted by the server to know how to take down a door without ever doing it. This is BAD. At the very least, it should require the equivalent of basic knowledge of how to play WvW, if that is the intention of the Commander ability. I would suggest a 1,000 Badge of Honor requirement on top of the 100g, for starters, and possibly some way to verify that you have a guild backing (item through influence points, possibly rank 5 Art of War) you on your ascension.

With multiple commanders comes confusion. I believe this is partially caused by the extremely poor squad system. This creates substandard strategy in situations where multiple commanders are not needed.

Squads are a mess. There is no interface involved with squads. You can’t invite players, and you cant remove players. The only way you know who is in your squad is by a ‘/squadinfo’ command which is text based only. /squad is rarely used, and I still can’t see squad members on my map. My suggestion is to have a squad tab added to the map menu, which allows you to drag and drop objectives with a number of players associated with them, as well as to be able to see who/what are where which would actually be useful.

Below is just my opinion of what commander’s compendium should be changed to.

War Standard

- Icon on Map like you have now
– Commander carries a Standard, and cannot use profession skills.
– Grants buffs to himself and surrounding players equivalent to the Orb bonus, but does not stack with the orb bonus.
– Is made in the mystic forge with an item equivalents of: 100 skill points, 1,000 badges of honor, 100,000 karma, and 100g.
– May only be activated once per day, and lasts a maximum of 6 hours.

To me, commander should just be a focus of the map, not a ‘leader of the server’. It should be a pleasure to fight next to a commander, but guild leadership should be the strategical center of GUILD wars, not some random guy with 100g.

Saw this one on reddit.

I support the idea to bind obtaining of Commander status to personal WvW progress.

I’ve seen several commanders who didn’t understand what they were doing while leading a bunch of people into a “slaughterhouse” set by their opponents. They were clearly playing the first time or just generally mentally challenged.

On a side note, I would suggest introducing Lieutenants. Commanders should be able to assign that role to 2-3 people so they can lead smaller squads to conquer smaller targets like camps or sentries. Their map icons will be smaller and of a different color.

there many topic on the forums about changing the commander most of what you said already been posted before. beside your mystic forge idea that i have seen. i do agree with the change for requirement to become a commander i still think it should be 1000 honor coins BUT 100 gold is way to much. i make maybe 2 – 4 gold a day in Worlds vs world i spend all day on it i never have any honor coins because i am always buying siege weapon to help with moving my sever forward. i think the price should be maybe moved down to 50 or even 30 gold. gold in my view should play no Rule in to making a commander just like it should play no rule in to buying siege weapons or superior siege weapons.

but everything else i agree with i was a commander i would really hate having to use another form of chat to work with my party.

An alternate option is to allow a guilds to display their members in special ways on the map to fellow guild members, and do away with commanders entirely. Guilds are absolutely more important to WvW than a Commander ever will be.

Hymnosi.5928:

An alternate option is to allow a guilds to display their members in special ways on the map to fellow guild members, and do away with commanders entirely. Guilds are absolutely more important to WvW than a Commander ever will be.

Exactly. Guilds and maybe alliances should be able to lead the fight, not random people with 100g.

Now the situation is still acceptable because not many single players were able to spend 100g on the commander book. In 6 months though, even single players will have enough gold to purchase the book and WvWvW is going to become a total joke.

Let us not forget that gold can be acquired through the cash shop.