Guild Wars 2

As a proud commander on Henge of Denravi(NA) I have noticed a few things and wanted to post them up. Feel free to add your thoughts (or disagree) too!

First, my observation: PvE Commanders are incredibly useful for leading zergs (Kessex? Scarlet?) in large world events. It gives players (especially people just dropping in) a sense of direction and organization.

The problem? Map chat is a complete mess to understand what’s going on. Spamming directions and targets or just formations is frustrating when you are suppressed for talking too much (usually re-answering questions for newbies too!)

Solutions?
- Players should be able to Join Squad of Commanders. This is not a replacement for Parties! Instead a Commander’s squad (not capped at 50 please!) could:
- Have Commander called Targets (perhaps a different color than Party targets)
- See Minimap draw overs/clicks so the whole squad knows where to move
Utilize a special /squad /team chat for focusing on what’s going on
- When Joining a Squad they immediately receive a “Message from the Commander” so they know that this is a Defensive team, a frontal Zerg, or just general instructions
- Join Squads should also be more prominent. Most PvErs who are not familiar with WvW know how to join Squads. Also there is a general negative attitude towards joining squads ‘since they don’t do anything’
- The minimap dots could be Orange or some color to identify your Squad; or just Squad would be visible (Green) and Blue (your own party)

I think this could be useful in major bosses. I’ve noticed how TTS has wonderful organisation with multiple Commanders running Tequatl runs. People are announcing constantly what they’re doing and direction is much better. Still, I think we could save ourselves a lot of repeating and focus on the battle more.

How would random players entering a zone know who to join or why?
Maybe Commanders each have a set amount of colors they can pick for their shield – we’ll be able to differentiate immediately where people are running/doing
Maybe a mirror to the LFG system, called LFS where we see a Commander and a brief message of what they’re doing. This could be on a per map basis, or world basis; I honestly don’t know which would work better.

How does this help WvW commanders?
We usually have multiple Commanders running zerg or def; a system to differentiate them, get an immediate message, and a squad chat for just that team would help greatly

What about Parties?
Parties are still useful here – tight teams working together to watch over each other. The commander and their squad/team serves as a guide for the party. The party has the objective to support the commander’s mission/target, while at the same time watching over themselves, healing each other, being focused, whatever.

Is this complicating things?
Probably. Right now I feel Commanders are not being utilized to their full potential in PvE. I think some additions could really push their use to a better place. Again, these changes are useful for boss runs or for world events, not every day PvE

What if I don’t want to join a Commander?
Don’t

There will be too many Commanders running around! We need a system to elect and boot them! <Insert similar questions here>
I don’t think so. The 100 gold limit is out of the range for most casual players. Yes we’ll get the occasional kittenes but you know what? Just ignore them, block them, and don’t pay attention to their commands! Respected, well organised, Commanders will rise to the top.

We could even explore a whole Commander system. Perhaps their could be Commander Skills (Call Singular Target, Call Multiple Targets, Permanent Map dots, Navigation dots…) whatever. This could get complicated though. Rather than dealing with all these grand possibilities, I rather propose some (I think) easier changes.
My hope is that Commanders could provide a better way for people to organise. Let me know what you all think :D

TL;DR? Really? :P
Better Squad tools
Dedicated Squad chat
Commander auto message when you join Squad
LFG system for Squads

This was crossposted on Reddit too!
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1pn68y/dear_arenanet_lets_rethink_commanders/

Why? To fuel more discussion.

I like it. Especially if Anet are going to be making more fights of Teq level need for organization.

Did you really need to make a suggestion for this? This should have been in day 1 of the game!!

remember the time where ppl simply organize a party and have a go with it, love that time.
no commanders who simply want to be a leader but have no skill or even sense of direction, no groups zerging the place while ruining it for others.
simply a group of 8 with ppl you get to know……still loving that time.

sorudo.9054:

remember the time where ppl simply organize a party and have a go with it, love that time.
no commanders who simply want to be a leader but have no skill or even sense of direction, no groups zerging the place while ruining it for others.
simply a group of 8 with ppl you get to know……still loving that time.

…A group of 8? …Yeah I guess GW1 was GW at it’s best,
or did you mean 5, which is the max group size in GW2?

I would like to see a split between commander types. Make pve-commanders separate from WvW commanders.

Step one: Refund all current commander badges. commanderstatus should be earned, not bought!

Step 2: add a new guild currency for WvW. A guild can earn this currency by capturing and holding forts/mines/camps in WvW (if claimed). If a guild runs boosters (WvW Fort +40 thoughness or things like that) they get more wvw currency. If they have enough a guildleader can buy a WvW commander tag for one off their members. This WvW commander tag is not accountbound or soulbound but only works when representing the guild it was bought for! This tag will be orange

For PvE a simular system exist. But here a tag cost influence and merits (im thinking bout 100 merits and 50k influence). Again this tag is not soulbound or accountbound, but can only be used when representing the guild who paid for it. This tag will be purple.

Result: You need a guild active in WvW to get a WvW tag and a guild active in PvE to get a pve tag. Due to the fact that it is challenging to get a tag for a guildmember, it is given to those that have a good amount of respect and trust within their guild.

Combined with the OP’s suggestions it would make the quality off the commanders better and also the possibillity’s they have.

mercury ranique – you’re saying something similar that I am hearing on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1pn68y/dear_arenanet_lets_rethink_commanders/

A lot of people are in agreement that the 100g price tag is not a good system to buy Commander badges. They should be earned, much like Daily Laurels. I think a Commander Achievement Tree would be great. One for PvE and WvW? I could see this working too. In fact I think this is the best idea, because some people just want to do specialize in one or the other.

Ultimately the goal is to find effective Commanders and enhance their abilities

I also got some things wrong: 100g + a lot of the abilities already exist.

Keep the replies coming

just a small addition to my earlier post. if people who dislike guilds still want to be able to get a commandertag it should be possible in a solo guild. The amount of guild wvw currency should be doable after a lot of time spent in WvW on a solo guild. I also recommended that guildtreks are being unlocked without merits needed (they are already way too boring for big guilds and can offer small guilds an easier way to access merits).

For a private guild it would mean that you could get a pve commander tag for a big amount of influence (roughly 400 gold) and a good amount of weekly guild treks (tier 1 and 2 guildtreks are doable for one person.

That’s an interesting idea.

I do like the idea of people earning the tag still. I feel people who are solo players (no guilds) can also become great leaders (Aragorn anyone?) :P

The commander tagged should be hard earned, not a money sink.

To fix the commander tag ANET needs to refund the people that bought it and implement the “earning it” method.

And this comes from a player that can afford the tag for his major 4 chars.

Dean Calaway.9718:

The commander tagged should be hard earned, not a money sink.

To fix the commander tag ANET needs to refund the people that bought it and implement the “earning it” method.

And this comes from a player that can afford the tag for his major 4 chars.

For WvW? Yes. For PvE? Heck no!!! . I love doing guild misions having 20-30 blue nachos all over the place. As for the requierements I guess a minimum of rank 50, lvl 80 and at least 6000 AP, but only when they make it so that commander tag is account bound and so is Wxp, until then no.

I always thought being a commander is just about having the money to buy it. I think they should make it based on achievements/accomplishments on PvE/WvW and make a commendation like system.

The title Commander should not be given to those who can pay for it. I think that they should be elected on past accomplishments and such. I don’t follow any Commanders as to me they are no one. They paid 100g and now have a blue tick above their heads? I’ve never even heard of these people and I am meant to follow them? Screw that.

The title and blue tick should be something they earn, not something they paid for. They should be chosen by the WvW community. Could make for some interesting in game politics.

I totally support this, but you left one important thing out: Commanders should be able to toggle the visibility of their Dorito to “everybody,” “squad,” or GUILD so that when we don’t want the entire world to see the tag but need it for a guild activity, we can do that.

What keeps happening to our guild is we go to do some Guild Puzzle that requires coordination and voice chat. One of our commanders turns on his or her Dorito, because for some odd reason Anet decided we didn’t need to be able to see guildies as green dots on the map- so we can only see our party… but parties are limited to 5, and even if we all join our Commander’s Squad, we still can’t see any map dots beside our party. Trouble is, the minute the Commander Tag goes on, every Tom, kitten and Hairy come running into our puzzle and totally screw it up for us… Langmar Estate is a perfect example of a place where this kills us… uninformed players, trying to be helpful but not informed as to what they have to do and completely ignoring /say and /map begging to please back off and quit carrying the wrong weapons to the wrong places.
If only guildies could see the Commander’s Tag to begin with, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Lolyta.4582:

I totally support this, but you left one important thing out: Commanders should be able to toggle the visibility of their Dorito to “everybody,” “squad,” or GUILD so that when we don’t want the entire world to see the tag but need it for a guild activity, we can do that.

I like this idea a lot too. Visibility of the Commander tag is something a lot of people are saying in both discussions

I just read through Reddit and everyone seems to be saying the same things:

- Colors
- Rethink the use of Squads
- Earn the tags
- Limit visibility of the tag
- A system for finding squads

Exciting:D

Sub-commanders
Being able to see the entire squad on the map
Guild-commander tag (separate, only people in the guild would be able to see the tag on the map. Very useful for guild events)

Allow commanders to select their own tags, if even only in color, so that each commander is easily distinguishable in the mini-map. It would simplify calling commands on chat.

DragonMind.2983:

sorudo.9054:

remember the time where ppl simply organize a party and have a go with it, love that time.
no commanders who simply want to be a leader but have no skill or even sense of direction, no groups zerging the place while ruining it for others.
simply a group of 8 with ppl you get to know……still loving that time.

…A group of 8? …Yeah I guess GW1 was GW at it’s best,
or did you mean 5, which is the max group size in GW2?

there is no good time in GW2 when you’re talking about grouping, commanders only made things worse.
GW1 has the better system, just take 8 players and play trough the game.
even with the game having a slightly more open world, an 8 man team is better then an immersive breaking zerg of a group that ruins it for everyone else.

This post should not be ignored, all of these are great ideas!! It would be extremely beneficial in PvE moreso in WvW I’m assuming. My only addition would be, to allow players to join a commander through the LFG tool, instead of it being separate, implement it into the current system.

Silent the Gray, I think you’re right.

Coding a whole new system, back and frontend, building the UI, checking for bugs, measuring the load on server CPU, and a whole other assortment of issues will probably mean this system is a few ways away. Remember it took us a good amount of time until we had a decent LFG system. Maybe the two can mirror each other though.

The game design mechanics for a full Commander Achievement line will also be just as time consuming. Maybe with some analytics ArenaNet can see what the average player takes to get to 100 gold and then use that as a barometer for achievements. Eg: two months of playing, so, two months worth of achievements for the average player.

Those of us who play more, will get it sooner obviously.

Great replies all around everyone