Guild Wars 2

First off I want to point out that I do not nor do I ever see myself obtaining a Commanders Tag. Not my cup of tea to lead.

Second, if any of these ideas have been previously posted, I apologize for not having found the threads easily to add to.

That being said.
I would like to see an option for commanders with their tag active (in Wv3 only for starters) to be able to increase the party limit.
Here’s what I mean.
Let’s say a tagged Commander (lil blue chevron over his head) has people join his party (/join Blah Blah, or /invite by commander only). Once the party is full to 5 (which is my understanding is the max?) a check box would appear in the upper left of each party members screen requesting to activate Commanders Option or not.
What this would do is, for that commander during this (let’s call it) encounter, the commander could checkbox to upscale the size of his/her party to lets say 15 or 20(I prefer 15 I think)
If the commander drops his Command Tag status or leaves the party, the party will dissipate and would have to reform.
All members of the original 5 would have to upvote for the Commanders Option.
Only players who have invested in the Commanders Tag would have the option available.
Commanders would have to be tagged prior to partying up for the checkboxes to activate to party members, not after.
Also under commanders option I would like to see a UI upgrade. Commander (Only) would be able to send short messages to his parties screen (personal choice as when I am in the heat of battle I rarely notice commands in chatbox to fall back or head to such n such objective.)
Other options could be added as well.
Commanders who want any kind of trust and following in Wv3 would not abuse this as it would give them a negative standing from the regular 3v3ers and people would refuse to follow them.
I have seen some good Commanders on my server who would be Great Commanders if their commands were seen to be followed.

Please feel free to add ideas for Commanders Options or dispute any of my thoughts
Thank you

Commanders have a Squad, which can hold up to 50 people. They have a special chat and they can see the supply of all people in the Squad.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commander

Well there you LOL Nice.

Haven’t seen our commanders use this.

I’d still love to see a Heads Up display of commands pop up on our screen when the commander has orders to issue.

I’ve been pretty vocal with suggestions to Commander and squad system upgrade. In a game that’s supposed to be about players working together and using tactics…. we simply don’t have the tools to do it. When you can’t control how many people are in a squad, or know where they are on the map it effects the ability to lead effectively. It’s kinda sad that the best tool available to coordinate in gw2 is a 3rd party voice program.

Players have their own ideas of what is fun and they will group the way that they enjoy. Unfortunately you are either forced in gw2 to run in a group of 5 or be part of a zerg. If you like running with 2-4 groups of players or guild mates doing stealthy hit and run tactics it’s impossible to put up a commander pin. Putting the pin up in this situation attracts everyone in the zone to you and now shows the orange swords. Most groups of players are forced to run together in separate groups of 5 players and have to rely on 3rd party voice to coordinate the multiple groups.

Your suggestion above would certainty be an improvement from what we have atm. I would like to see the commander and squad system flexible for all play styles and sizes. The easiest way would to allow commanders to hide the pin AND still retain all the functions of a squad. Now you can have a private squad that can be used for any number of players with some degree of control.

Something needs changed and I hope Arena net realizes how inadequate the current system is for player grouping.

Daemonne.5018:

Once the party is full to 5 (which is my understanding is the max?) a check box would appear in the upper left of each party members screen requesting to activate Commanders Option or not.
What this would do is, for that commander during this (let’s call it) encounter, the commander could checkbox to upscale the size of his/her party to lets say 15 or 20(I prefer 15 I think)
If the commander drops his Command Tag status or leaves the party, the party will dissipate and would have to reform.
All members of the original 5 would have to upvote for the Commanders Option.
Only players who have invested in the Commanders Tag would have the option available.

My only problem with this is its common from my experience for commanders to toggle the tag while in battle for different things. For example: While taking a keep you have 1 commander tag on and another player that has the tag (but its not on) the commander dies and has to respawn (for what ever reason…it happens sometimes) So the player still at the fight pops his/her tag to keep people organized while the respawning commander turn his/hers off while running back to the fight. This would be an issue if your “extra” people in your party drop every time you toggle your tag.

I personally feel the commander tag functionality is fine, the problem is how you obtain it. There needs to be something in place that allows you to use it. Also (maybe) making the tag different from WvW and PvE. Both still cost 100g to get. For WvW you have to spend 1000? badges of honor, have XX amount of kills or objective captures? For PvE, you would need map completion, dungeon master? or some other PvE related achievements.

That being said, (and if they did implement something like this) it would have to be retroactive. Instead of putting the book back in your inventory…add a consumable item at the vendor and the requirements to buy said consumable item would be the set criteria set above. The biggest thing is any change to how the commander tag is obtained has to be retroactive other wise most servers will have some big issues while the current commanders try to earn there tag back. Plus all the QQ that would start.

Just an idea…don’t over think it to much :-)

I find it amusing that you basically just suggested an existing feature. Shows that newer and probably even veteran players don’t understand the system.

Hopefully, the march update will bring more attention and some improvements to the system so people will use it more.

AmIAnnoyingNow.2903:

Hopefully, the march update will bring more attention and some improvements to the system so people will use it more.

We can hope. If they make no changes to it… it would be pretty sad.

AmIAnnoyingNow.2903:

I find it amusing that you basically just suggested an existing feature. Shows that newer and probably even veteran players don’t understand the system.

Hopefully, the march update will bring more attention and some improvements to the system so people will use it more.

Yeeah, I pretty much virtual face slapped myself when the first response came lol.

I posted this in another thread but it applies here as well:

Add commander tags to guilds which can only be seen by guild mates. Make this something you can unlock down the wvw line with influence and add the ability to pop guild commander tags via guild role permissions while limiting the number of active guild tags to one per fifty members. Any one in a role with commander tag permissions could then pop a commander tag visible only to their guild and each guild could only have a maximum of ten tags active at any one time.

Zikory.6871:

Daemonne.5018:

Once the party is full to 5 (which is my understanding is the max?) a check box would appear in the upper left of each party members screen requesting to activate Commanders Option or not.
What this would do is, for that commander during this (let’s call it) encounter, the commander could checkbox to upscale the size of his/her party to lets say 15 or 20(I prefer 15 I think)
If the commander drops his Command Tag status or leaves the party, the party will dissipate and would have to reform.
All members of the original 5 would have to upvote for the Commanders Option.
Only players who have invested in the Commanders Tag would have the option available.

My only problem with this is its common from my experience for commanders to toggle the tag while in battle for different things. For example: While taking a keep you have 1 commander tag on and another player that has the tag (but its not on) the commander dies and has to respawn (for what ever reason…it happens sometimes) So the player still at the fight pops his/her tag to keep people organized while the respawning commander turn his/hers off while running back to the fight. This would be an issue if your “extra” people in your party drop every time you toggle your tag.

I see what you are saying, but as long as the originating commander didn’t toggle his tag or leave the party (I didn’t state this upcoming part in my first post) other players with commander tags could pop or stash their commander tags at will. Communication would be key in keeping anyone from following the commander out of a fight to the respawn point. Just make sure the commander communicates for the party to stay with the ‘sub-commander’ who would now have his tag on to keep the line fighting at their current objective.
OR:
have an option to ‘pass the banner’ if the original commander has to toggle, making a new commander the lead.

Just ideas of course, not a Hey this is how it should be Devs, make it happen :-D

Edit: another idea is being able to set a sub commander in case of a disconnect or necessity to untoggle arises.

Daemonne.5018:

I see what you are saying, but as long as the originating commander didn’t toggle his tag or leave the party (I didn’t state this upcoming part in my first post) other players with commander tags could pop or stash their commander tags at will. Communication would be key in keeping anyone from following the commander out of a fight to the respawn point. Just make sure the commander communicates for the party to stay with the ‘sub-commander’ who would now have his tag on to keep the line fighting at their current objective.
OR:
have an option to ‘pass the banner’ if the original commander has to toggle, making a new commander the lead.

Just ideas of course, not a Hey this is how it should be Devs, make it happen :-D

Edit: another idea is being able to set a sub commander in case of a disconnect or necessity to untoggle arises.

From personal experience: Most the time following a commander I won’t even join the squad, I’m in VOIP with the guild and in a party with them, most info in relayed over voice since its normally easier then typing it out. So I don’t feel its needed to change the functionality of the tag its self. Having a larger group doesn’t seem to be needed as long as the tag is visible (like it is now). Understandably there could be time were a larger group could be helpful or nice but I don’t see it as a needed change.

If there were going to be changes to the tag I would only suggest:
How the tag is obtained. Cost/criteria.
To add to that: Make it different from WvW and PvE as there are uses in both aspects of the game but there needs to be a way to limit how people can use the tag in WvW. From my understanding (from another thread) there is a cap on how many tags can be on a BL. Even if that is the case (say its 6 because I don’t know the real number if there is one) That can do more damage to the servers organization the good unless the server is really organized. But considering the common pug have that many would be confusing.
Add a “achievement” line (not so much for points but more for “rank” or data) That gives commanders a rank or proof of service so people can see who is the more decorated commander on the field and give them priority. This is a ok to bad idea but just an idea
Why is kinda bad is it would make it hard for upcoming commanders to make a name for them selves. Example: Say I WvW casually just for fun here and there so my stats are far lower then the current WvWers. 2 months from now I get my tag and want to really focus on WvW and turns out I’m a ok to good commander but my “stats” won’t show that I’m battle ready unless the server allows me to get more experience.
The reason I say this is I feel its a interesting idea and I would like to see the stats of the guy I’m following but as you can tell there are some major flaws in the idea…

Taldek.6105:

Add commander tags to guilds which can only be seen by guild mates. Make this something you can unlock down the wvw line with influence and add the ability to pop guild commander tags via guild role permissions while limiting the number of active guild tags to one per fifty members. Any one in a role with commander tag permissions could then pop a commander tag visible only to their guild and each guild could only have a maximum of ten tags active at any one time.

This would solve the ability for guilds to create private squads for guild events without interfering with zone commanders. We need a more dynamic way for multiple groups to coordinate and the current Commander and Squad system isn’t cutting it.