Guild Wars 2

Let me just start off saying I’m a Commander, and I use mine in WvW and PvE. I wouldn’t mind losing my tag if it meant we got a revamp. It’s a cool idea, but I feel it’s too basic. I feel like it’d be wonderful to add a bit more depth to it.

First off, I gotta say, it’s kind of annoying how you can get a WvW AND PvE tag with 100 gold, and a person can literally have no idea what they’re doing. I’m sick of people using it to just show off as a status thing. I think you need to earn it with WvW merit (say ranks, or badges, or kills), and maybe even gold on top of it. It’s like, I go into Lion’s Arch and see 8 commanders sitting around that I don’t know, and I go into WvW and see two in 2 different maps, and the other borderlands have nobody in it. I mean yeah people tag down, but as often as I’m in there, I don’t see more than a few regular commanders. It’s kinda of irritating knowing it can be bought, and no experience needed. It’ll get rid of a few clueless commanders too, I’ve been in group where I’ve commanded and the commander has followed me because they don’t know what they’re doing (before I got my tag of course).

Second, It would be sooo useful to be able to change squad/tag colors. When you have 4-5 commander tags on a map, it would be sooo nice to have colors to identify who you’re supposed to be following. Yes you can hover over the minimap, but when commander tags are on top of each other, it’s REALLY hard to single a name out. (Same goes for people in your party, hard to identify a name with tags.) It would be even cooler to have a R/B/G color wheel to customize your own color, and maybe even show that color in chat when you say, speak in squad. This sort of ties into my next suggestion.

Third off, I’d like to ask for some sort of commander privilege in chat.. Especially World V. World, and especially if I’m the only commander tagged up in the map. By this, I mean make my name a slightly different color, or a little bolder, or my chat a little bigger or SOMETHING. I don’t care if I don’t have it in PvE, because that’s gonna be annoying with 8 commanders in a map, and commanders aren’t needed nearly as much, and nobody really needs to have their chat special colors or sizes or whatever in Lion’s Arch. In world versus world, when I’m trying to command a zerg, and I have to shout in caps (yeah I know make for of me for not having perfect control of a zerg, but they can have a mind of their own even with a decent group..) and repeat stuff a few times.. that would totally be eliminated if my chat caught people’s eyes more. I still think it’d be so awesome to be able to change my color and then have it come up in chat, then I can have say purple, or blue, or pink to catch people’s eyes.

I think it’d also be really cool to change how squad works. I mean how many people know they can join my squad and see a different chat… almost nobody, and from everyone I’ve talked to, nobody uses squad, and at least half the people i meet didn’t even know it existed.. I think it’d work best if people could auto join my squad if they’re within my 3000-3500 range for say, 30 seconds, and auto leave if they’re out of it for more than 30. A manual join on top of it would be great for when I have people say go take a certain camp across the map, so they can hear me and I can talk without switching chat. Because if I have a different color tag selected like I mentioned earlier, it’s easier to talk because people can see my giving orders with my unique color.

This is a minor complaint.. but how come I’ve been suppressed as a commander but yet I see gold sellers spamming away in Lion’s Arch, what gives man? I know I repeat stuff, but it’s usually only stuff like on me, or follow me guys! You know, it gets a bit hectic in WvW when fighting zergs and trying to take a tower/keep at the same time. Stuff has to get repeated with all the other chatter like “rez mi plz”. I’m sure you guys are still battling the gold sellers, but the game is much better off than it used to be in that regards, so thanks.

There’s also maybe a way to make it so the more exp you have as a commander the more unlocks (colors, maybe even another symbol as you get way up there.)

TL;DNR/Summary

Commanders get a color wheel to get a different tag color, applies that color to chat. Makes it easier to command. This makes identifying commanders much faster, and color chat applies only in WvW. Also add merit so you can’t get a tag with just 100 gold. (Which isn’t that much compared to recent inflation/the tons of gold on the market from events.)

I dunno, this has just all be an accumulation of ideas over the months of playing GW2.. I love this game, I just want to see it even better, haha. :P Thanks for reading, feedback would be highly appreciated. -GoM Commander LegendwaitferitDary

I would have to agree with a lot of the changes that you listed. It would be extremely helpful to have differences in the tag colors (or even use guild or different emblems, if it would make it easier on the devs) to differentiate between the commanders running different strategies. I have just recently gotten my commander tag and have only been tagged up a few times in EB and other maps. I do however, use my tag a lot with my guild and it would make it easier if I was not interfering with the main zerg (EB reset night for example). As for how to acquire the tag, I am not sure. I agree with it being 100 gold and understand that others may use it for different purposes. In PVE or what have you. So when it comes to that I am not sure how Anet would be able to make it a fair option for everyone who wishes to attain the tag. Different style text would be great, along with a little more leniency with chat spam. Overall some very good ideas. We will have to see what Anet has in store for us in the future..

- GOM Jextr [ROFL]

I was just about to write a suggestion about adding different colors for the commander tag so thumbs up.

I did have one other suggestion: Give players an easy way to tell how far they are from a commander without having to play around with the map. Maybe make the tag lighter if you are far from it and make it darker as you get close? Either that or give it a range so that you can’t see it at all if you are to far.

Great idea, nopoet. I’ve had issues with that. scrolling around the mini map is annoying. I also ran out of characters to type in the 5000 limit, haha.

Thanks for the feedback jextr

I’d love to see something like this:

100g gets you the Default Blue. This tag is only usable in PvE initially.

Add additional colors for, say, 10g a pop. Other colors include distinct common colors, such as Red, Green, Orange, Yellow, Purple, Black, Pink, etc

WvW Skill: Command Mastery:
Requires: Command Tag Purchased, WvW Rank 20+
Rank 1: Allows you to equip your Commander Tag in WvW
Rank 2: While your Tag is equipped, your name in /map chat shows up with your Colored Tag on either side of it.
Rank 3: Allows you to “draw” on the WvW map so that your whole server can see, not just party members. Ink color matches your tag, and remains for 60 seconds, or till erased. There is a checkbox in the Map window for players to “Show/Hide Commander Map Drawing”

I think anything would be an improvement at this point. I dunno. I think colors should be free

Just wanted to give my support to this thread. I think it’s really important that improvements be made a.s.a.p. to the comm tags. As they stand, and as stated by the op, they are basically useless unless you’re being followed by friends.

Adding merits to the cost of Commander Tags wouldn’t increase the effort needed to obtain it. 100g is easy to get, and Merits are easy to get. Combining them doesn’t make it any harder.

The best way to increase the “cost” of Commander Tags would be experience involved, either at purchase, with a high WvW level, or after purchase, with a leveling system unlocking perks.

But the core problem is that Commanders have no real ability to command their troops. All they have is a tag on their head, which adds superficial authority. Some commanders are great, but they shouldn’t have to prove their worth to every single player, especially when some players are just dissenting kittens no matter what you do, publicly questioning decisions. Add that another Commander can hop on at anytime to undermine your authority, stealing troops from your efforts, or arguing, and you start to lose incentives to even try.

What they need is to give more power to the Commanders, such as the ability to silence troublesome voices (vote silencing is badly needed), or giving a bonus to those around them. Even something simple like Siegerazer’s Vitality boost would drastically change the battlefield, rewarding organization and teamwork, increasing the worth of Commanders. Authority would still be an issue, but at least players would understand working together to be a bonus. (So many players hop onto WvW, solo themselves to death, then complain that WvW sucks.)

Since more Commanders are being created every day, it’s slowing becoming meaningless to have a Commander tag. There isn’t a reason to follow a specific Commander until they prove their worth to you, which takes hours. If your World wins, there isn’t anything telling you who lead the charge, increasing the authority of all Commanders instead of the ones that deserve it. I’d suggest a leaderboard for Commanders, tracking their efforts (outposts stolen, defend, player kills), that they can use as evidence that they know what they are doing, so that players are following directions from experienced players instead of who ever has a tag on at the time. Refresh it every week, and give the Commanders an incentive to lead players and excel at WvW for bragging rights, while reducing the authority of fair weather leaders.

Not merits like guild merits.. I mean the literal sense of the word. Like they just have to prove by leveling, kills, ECT. That’s all. Not guild merits.

Off the bat I completely agree with everything said about how easy it is to get a commander tag: you can get 100g without getting much experience of the game (e.g I’ve played PvE many, many hours and have more than 100g, but why should that give me the ability to be a commander in WvW where I’m only rank 8?)
-So there needs to be a way of regulating how you get a commander tag. Perhaps make it a well-rounded purchasement? You have to spend WvW rank points/badges of honour, karma, gold and also have a certain amount of exp. on your character?

Next I agree with how too many commanders on one map is confusing and tag colour should be different, the commanders’ chat colour should correspond with their icon (I love that idea). However I feel that it would be a bad thing to allow customisation of your own tag colour: I imagine that there would be a trend in the colours chosen and that doesn’t help distinguish commanders from each other.
-I suggested automated different colours (e.g. if there are 3 commanders in a map, a red, a blue and a yellow), but perhaps that could be a player choice? A commander can decide the colour of his own tag, but players can choose to override that to make recognisability easier (e.g. when 3 commanders choose shades of blue that are close together).

With commanders’ orders being suppressed, the way around that would be to just ask people to join the squad if they want to see the orders. I do like the idea of commanders not being suppressed, but let’s face it, the noob commander is still going to spam (and that would just be even worse).

That’s why I was saying color wheel. Thousands of color possibilities. Yeah it may trend, but we wouldn’t know til it was actually released.Anything is better than everyone being blue and everyone having exact same chat color.

Took my suggestion, so you can delete yours.

As promised, I read your post and will comment on it.

I don’t agree with all of your suggestions, so I guess I’ll go point by point.

First off, I agree that the commander’s tag is a mess. It’s nothing more than a blue dorito above a character. Any schmuck can farm 100 G, buy the tag and act like he’s the messiah. I see far too many commanders chilling with their tag up in LA, whom I’ve never seen in WvW, and sometimes not even in PvE outside of LA. In its current state, the commander tag is absolutely not representative of the player’s skills, experience and game knowledge, which it exactly should be. As a non-commander, I expect the commander I’m following to know his kitten, but alas, you all know it’s often not the case.

I think it derives from the easiness of obtaining the tag, or rather, the easiness of obtaining vs the responsibility attached to it. Another poster commented on how tags do not convey direct command, and players are free to follow them or not. However, I think that the principle of the commander tag is precisely that the said commander should be followed and obeyed, as he should convey directions, knowledge and strategies. Personally, I think it’d be almost better to follow the guy with a few legendaries, rather than a commander. Getting a legendary involves gathering resources from pretty much everything in GW2. In my book, THAT represents wide knowledge, exploration and experience of GW2, and should make a player worthy of following.

This leads me with a suggestion. The current state of the tag is aggravated by the fact that you buy the tag for both PvE and WvW usage, and I think that’s a bad design. Making the acquisition of a tag specific to the currency and/or method of acquiring would make better tag holders. For example, having to buy the PvE commander tag with your second Gift of Exploration, or getting it when reaching 5,000 PvE-related achievement points, would definitely means that the holder is knowledgeable in the PvE domain. Or getting your WvW commander tag with 1 or more Gift(s) of Battle would mean that commander would have a minimum knowledge of WvW. I think having a separate comm. tag for PvE and WvW (and even PvP, who knows if someday PvP will become huge) and a specific method of acquisition would reduce the clusterfrack we are experiencing now. If the tag would remain to be both PvE and WvW, then the requirements should definitely be something like gathering the resources for a legendary, but maybe not as steep.

Now, for the commander’s special abilities. I don’t agree with some of your suggestions, because I feel that Anet has already implemented tools for commander management. They are the /team and /squad chat. I know you mentioned that a significant portion of the player base may ignore these chat channels, but that fault is on the commanders’ hands only, not the players or even Anet. It’s the commanders’ duty to use /squad to communicate with his group, while leaving the /map or /team chat free for general information and strategies. There’s no need for a single color for each commander on a map if you’re only following one and he’s typing in bright yellow. And if you want to hear the other commanders’ situations while being in your own squad, that’s what the /team channel is for, while the /map channel should be used for the general players. We shouldn’t ask Anet for other tools if we already have some that could probably solve the problems.

I however agree with commanders having a little something to differentiate them in the sea of chatter, even from within a restrictive channel such as /squad. I would be more in favor of something subtle, like their names underlined, rather than their whole chat text bold, italic or underlined, which would make other players’ chat appear less important. Also, when you join a squad, the commander’s icon could turn to yellow (same as the /squad chat color) to facilitate following. The commander would also see his icon yellow, indicating players have joined his squad. Like I said earlier, there’s no need for commanders to RGB-choose a color if only one color is needed to show whom you’re following and receiving directions from.

On the whole, I think we all agree there’s something amiss with the commander tag. However I think that not much is needed to change to make it better, and that most of the work should be done by the players, both commander and not.

@osta It can be so hectic to be constantly switching channels and such. I do know it’s my duty to tell people about squad chat.. But you know how annoying it is to have people go how do I do that in the middle of a zerg every single time? Only half the zerg will even join. So then I’m yelling in two different chats because only third/half my group even joined and who knows how many people even saw the message to begin with. I think we’re all in agreement something needs to be done, I’m just throwing my idea out there.

@kris I don’t see yours currently active, so I’m not going to delete my entire post because it was “your” idea. This was my idea too. That’s just silly.

That’s why there are chat tabs. I have PvE, Guild, Dungeon and WvW. My WvW chat tab pretty much has all the chat channels active, so I only need to switch tab to have all chat channel active.

Unless you meant about switching channel when typing. For WvW, most of your typing should be done in /d. You could have a second in command (party member, guild mate, etc) to transmit your /team chat if you don’t want to type /team (or the single letter shortcut, forgot what it is), then having to switch back to /d.

I personally think you should strongly enforce /d use when you are commanding. Only speak in squad for your zerg, and if newcomers ask why you’re not saying any directives, let your squad members tell him/her you’re a good commander using squad chat. Being assertive, in charge and following protocol is part of being a competent commander.

I’m not a commander, but I understand very well your predicament. That’s what I’d do if I’d ever get a blue dorito

First I really hate commander tags in PvE, it makes commanders in WvW look bad. Secondly I think that having the commanders use a unique font is a great idea. I don’t play WvW that often, but when I do I really don’t want to sort through chat channels. Thirdly the colored tags would be an excellent addition. Tying commander tags to some sort of experience not just money is necessary if commanders want people following them because all to often I hear the argument, “They apparently had 100G to throw away,” or “They don’t really know what they are doing; they just farmed 100G for the tag.” As tags are now they do not represent ABILITY, but more often represent arrogance and occasionally stupidity.

Yeah they need to add colour to commanders chat line.

I agree with OP about people having their tag up in LA. It gets annoying when you are trying to wp in LA when the commander(s) are right now it.

But…the tag is a useful tool in PvE content such as Guild Challenges (Save Our Supplies and probably others). I am able to assign waypoints for each spawns/key locations/kite path using the commander waypoints during PvE events(missions, and maybe future dungeons with more than 5 members). Hell even teaching dungeons to new players who just started playing gw2 is easier with waypoints.

We shouldn’t prevent people(who are going to use it right) from buying it because of inconsiderate people who keep their tags up.

Arenanet should disable all commander icons when they zone in a city OR give the players the option to not show commander tags who are not in their guild.

The tag is a useful for Both PVE and WvW when it’s used right.

@osta My only issue with that, is people don’t always join. They just don’t. I don’t want people running around not listening because they’re too stupid to type /d. Sorry, I just don’t want to force working into a system that I feel is broken anyways. Plus squad chat is painfully ugly. It’s like pukish yellow green. Just awful. I appreciate the feedback, but I think you need to command and see how crazy it is in the first place.

If nothing else, I hope we can at least get ArenaNet to change SOMETHING. Feedback from a Dev/Anet member would be so amazing.

I’ve purchased the 100g Commander tag, while it should be earned by some kind of achievement. As I’ve suggested before, this tag needs mutch more ability;
A lot of tactical draw in the map, better zerg management, and I don’t agree with sticking it to one character.
What if Victory requires me to use my Warrior instead of Ranger?
I’m not a grinder to buy it once more.

As WWW improves, AN cares about Commanders too.
Changes will come one day. Soon we hope…

a bit to long to read you may lose many peoples attension. but any how back to subject I feel commander tags should also give a comander 10 extra trait points only if he is repping his commander tag. As 100g just for a hat and not much perks I got disapointed when I got mine. But it would make sense to give commanders a bit more trait points and or skills of some sort that normal players cant use.

There is a search function in the message boards. There has been a better post than this about this topic already.

Assassin X.8573:

There is a search function in the message boards. There has been a better post than this about this topic already.

There have actually been HUNDREDS of posts covering the same suggestions on this thread. Since BW1 we’ve been advocating for a better grouping system. Over the last year I’ve seen some fantastic suggestions and feedbacks… none of which have been acknowledged. All we’ve seen is Devon Carter post that he agrees the commander and squad system lacks functionality and would be improved “sometime in the future”.

They need a functional and flexible Commander and Squad system that can be used by all players and guilds. You need to be able to flag the pin public or private/guild to be used for guild events or specific tasks.. Gw2 simply has the worst grouping system I’ve seen in the last 6 years of MMO releases.

We still don’t have a working group UI in WvW, all we can do is “report”. I can just imagine how long it will be until we have a functional C&S system. IMO they completely dropped the ball on this and are well past the “reasonable” time to fix it.

There any that anet came make commander tags account bound? I find lot of commanders having to switch characters and are bummed that the spend 100g for it be soul bound on character. Its lot easier to just pop you tag in need rather then having to roll to the character with the tag because by that time you could have lost time you need to rally and move out. I also understand that anet may run into the problem of refunding those with multiple commander tags on their account.

The entire approuch to the grouping system is clunky, frustrating and leaves you feeling like someone kicked you in the crotch. Completely perplexed how a decent grouping system wasn’t in at release, and how it could go on a year with no significant changes.

Ahmrill.7512:

Assassin X.8573:

There is a search function in the message boards. There has been a better post than this about this topic already.

There have actually been HUNDREDS of posts covering the same suggestions on this thread. Since BW1 we’ve been advocating for a better grouping system. Over the last year I’ve seen some fantastic suggestions and feedbacks… none of which have been acknowledged. All we’ve seen is Devon Carter post that he agrees the commander and squad system lacks functionality and would be improved “sometime in the future”.

They need a functional and flexible Commander and Squad system that can be used by all players and guilds. You need to be able to flag the pin public or private/guild to be used for guild events or specific tasks.. Gw2 simply has the worst grouping system I’ve seen in the last 6 years of MMO releases.

We still don’t have a working group UI in WvW, all we can do is “report”. I can just imagine how long it will be until we have a functional C&S system. IMO they completely dropped the ball on this and are well past the “reasonable” time to fix it.

I read through some and they were so short, and didn’t cover all my ideas.. So I just made my own. Plus the search function wasn’t working at all for me so I could only go so many pages back.

What a good post. Very nice suggestions. It’s too bad arena-net still hasn’t did anything with Commanders. Almost one year later, and it seems like these suggestions are just a waste of time.

I say leave the tag acquisition as is. Why hinder tools for people who want to lead? Leaders will lead, tag or no tag. These players get known, tag or no tag.

To me, outside of WvW the tag means almost nothing. It does help with Guild Missions and events as shouting out to others that this is a point of interest. Guild Missions (every single one of them) are public, so a way for those not in guild and not wanting to party can participate and get a lil direction.

What I do agree with to some extent is different colored tags to suit different purposes.
What should have happened was:
You buy tag.
Your tag changes color based on how many are in your squad. That’s who gets ranked on giving orders.
1. 5ppl and under, default blue
2. 6-10 ppl red
3. 11-15 ppl yellow
so on and so forth.

WvW rank also means nothing. It just means that you may or may have not been following a zerg to gain some xp. Doesn’t mean you are a leader and understand tactics and strategy.

Can’t have a up vote system because that depends on how many players you can get to vote for you. Guilds have 400 ppl, bam…400 votes right there. Abused comes to mind.

I don’t know how you would improve the commander. Any other MMO’s out there have anything similar? I know FPS’s like Battlefield 2/2142/3 had a commander who could take the spot, had a top down map and would assign objectives to all the squads. You only get objective points being in squads so it paid to be in them.

I dunno. Not saying they are bad ideas, just not what I’m looking for.

The grouping system in GW2 is the worst I’ve seen in the last 6 years playing MMO’s. They did so many things right in GW2 and totally pooched on the grouping systems. So much feedback on it and we just keep getting the standard reply of:

“We plan to address the grouping systems but it involves many departments and will take time to implement”

They can pump out living story every 2 weeks and add new progression systems but can’t even fix the group UI in WvW to match the one that works in PvE. A working and functional grouping system should have been in AT LAUNCH.

Sorry my suggestions are not what you are looking for, but I feel the system badly needs an upgrade, and many others tend to agree with me

The squad feature has really been badly implemented it should come with a specific UI to know what you have in your squad etc I know a thread existed for this but I guess it got lost.

There’s also a bunch of issue with the grouping system in WvW anyway. Issues that are really annoying like when you left click on a name and you can only report players…..

I like your ideas especially the one about the price of the tag. I really wonder why Anet made it like available through gold only….To make it available to all?? That would be pretty naive. Not everybody can be a commander! I lead people in fights in WvW but I am not taking the commander tag because I know that right now I lack the skills to keep up with all the sieging part of the battles

I tried searching for other topics but nothing was working on my search function so I just made my own.. plus I wanted to add in my own 2 cents.

afatpaws.7810:

I tried searching for other topics but nothing was working on my search function so I just made my own.. plus I wanted to add in my own 2 cents.

Search feature is not working. Any WvW suggestions posted here are quickly buried by 10 pages of PvE suggestions. We’ve asked for WvW group Ui fixed, we’ve asked for a better commander and squad system, we’ve even asked for a “WvW suggestions subforum” so the WvW suggestions are easier to access and read.

It doesn’t matter. Player WvW feedback effects WvW development about 0.5%. I realize it takes time to make some changes, but after a year it’s plain that players are simply being ignored.

:( how dissapointing

…I like the suggestion, but holy moly, wall of text. +1

My bad, haha. It was going to be even longer but the 5000 character limit made me trim it back a bit.

Anyhow, it is a real challange to manage people while TAG On.
Now I’m leading people at Scarlet Briar’s invasion, and all I can do is to spam the chat with orders (that leads me silenced lol). Yes, people following me, and yes, people doing what I say – but how should lead proper tactics when I have no tools for it?

this sounds like a good idea to me!

I just feel this system is more of a kitten ing contest than actually meant to do good.. At least, that’s what is happen now and I hate it

I’d really like a response from an A-Net employee, guess it’s not happening.