Guild Wars 2

Just let guilds buy temp commander icons for members with influence. Guilds are the ones that bring the organization necessary to succeed at WvW to the table, let the ones that are actually organizing things have the icons. Bonus is that commanders will be guaranteed to have an organized group backing them too, so the icon will be worth trusting. The game is called Guild Wars, after all. Maybe let them buy icons for people outside their guild too, so organized players from small guilds can still participate. Believe me, guilds want all the good commanders and leaders they can get in WvW, and would be happy to spend influence outside the guild if it meant greater victories.

I oppose the idea of democratically nominating commanders since that will just lead to constant spamming in map/team chat and drama-filled fights over votes between wannabe server celebrities.

LoserPolice.2157:

Just let guilds buy temp commander icons for members with influence.

Even commanders that are only visible to guild members. That way there is always someone in the guild can can be given a commander status for events and multiple guild grps.

Commander “reputation” is a cool concept, would definitely like to see something like that. Part of a challenge for current commanders is (as has been mentioned above a few times), the squad capability. It is rarely used, I think it’s for a number of reasons. Here’re some ideas I posted in suggestions forum a few weeks ago, reposting it here:

Problems with current squad functionality:

1. Everything squad-related involves /commands. Commander needs to type these commands to get any info about their squad
2. Being in a squad hides all other map commanders from people who joined the squads—so they have no idea how many other commanders may be on the map or where they are. They also have no idea who else is in the squad with them and for that matter if they’re even in a squad or not.
3. Squad members have to know about /squadleave to be able to leave a squad.
4. For non-squad situations, /supplyinfo has such a small radius it’s not very useful.

Possible solutions:

1. For the commander, provide a window that could show squad composition and supply full time. Would be nice to see squad member’s name and class as well as supply info. If that clutters the UI too much, make player name tags a unique color such as you can currently see for party or guild members.
2. For the squad member, see your commander’s icon in a different color but also be able to see all other commanders on your map.
3. For the squad member, be able to see who else is in the squad in the UI and be able to leave the squad by clicking on something in the UI instead of having to know /squadleave
4. Commanders of a squad should have their own chat color (or be bold text) so players can immediately notice what the commander is saying vs all the other stuff being said. This would likely be beneficial functionality in /team chat as well.

I believe changes such as these would be conducive to making squad usage a natural part of WvW and greatly empower commanders to coordinate their forces across the map. In turn it would make it easier for commanders to display their battlefield leadership skills and build their reputations.

Let me start off with a net is not going to change the system it’s to much work. If you world vs world enough you will know what commander are good or not. What’s wrong with new commanders period ? That they suck or maybe not know what they are doing ? How about you get your title and do something about it ? How about as a server you come together and train your JR commanders. This game is all about community , we should work with what you got and improve.

uflyandy.6392:

Let me start off with a net is not going to change the system it’s to much work. If you world vs world enough you will know what commander are good or not. What’s wrong with new commanders period ? That they suck or maybe not know what they are doing ? How about you get your title and do something about it ? How about as a server you come together and train your JR commanders. This game is all about community , we should work with what you got and improve.

You can currently turn off your commander pin, but it dissolves the squad.

All they would have to do is take the current Commander and Squad system and allow the commander to “toggle on/off” the pin while still retaining all the functions of the squad. This is a very simple change but now gives all guilds and players ways to run multiple groups together without expecting to “lead” as a commander.

It would basically be a non-commander multi-group system.

This system isn’t about merit, it’s about popularity. Guild system is useless because if they wanted to be a public commander they’d leave the guild, get voted, and then rejoin. Unless anet wants to make an actual gameplay system (read: an actual strategy game) for choosing people who know what they’re doing, it’s not gonna work.

Whilst I personally think that much of the OPs ideas sound great, it is something that in my opinion, Anet will think is a terrible concept.

Currently, as we all know, commander tags are bought with cash, some of which, quite possible, large amounts of, acquired from the cash shop with gem to gold conversions.

Personally I can never see Anet removing something from their game, whilst people are still happy to open their wallets.

This is a bit of a bump of this thread with my own idea for the revamp that NEEDS to be done. This is coming from a primarily PvE based person who is tired of hearing about people complaining about the commander system.
——————————————————————————————-
Current Commanders
-Make it a “Merchant” title That doesn’t show up on PvE or WvW maps
- Give current commanders the ability to refund their money
———————————————————————————————
Changes to the New Commander settings itself
It’s NOT a PvE title, it should not show up in PvE maps. I would love a “PvE Helper” title that DOES show up in PvE maps to help beginners (for instance, requiring the completion of the world, all dungeon runs, and the capping of somewhere between 3-8 professions) but I digress, that’s irrelevant to the current discussion.
————————————————————————————
Requirements for the “Commander Title”
I am in no way a WvW expert, so this is simply a rough idea. I just felt that I shouldn’t complain about it without at least an IDEA for a solution. It may not be liked, but I’m just throwing this out there. I don’t like the idea of the vote system, but that’s a personal dislike.

(X is some arbitrary amount that can be edited as the game progresses)

Some or all of the following conditions met:
-Participation in X number of defensive events.
-X Yaks defended/attacked.
-X number of siege weapons built
-X number of supply used
-X number of enemy players killed.
-Other important things I’m probably forgetting because I don’t WvW religiously.

EDIT: Yes, I realize you could just “farm” commander title requirements. But at least that increases your experience in WvW and makes you more knowledgeable and skilled at it. You will never find a “perfect” system when you’re dealing with choosing leaders of large social groups that directly impacts the entire game.

Simply put, the current system is flawed. Not only does it require no WvW skill to be a COMMANDER of WvW, but WvWing isn’t even the most efficient way to get it. It’s absolutely ridiculous how stupid some of the people gloating about how they’re a WvW commander are.

I may not be presenting the BEST alternative in many opinions, but I don’t like voting. It’s just a breeding ground for exploits, trolling, fighting, divisions over “WHY IS THAT PERSON A COMMANDER?” and possible alienation of smaller guilds (but that’s not necessarily going to happen). That said, even the voting system would be better than the BS we have now.

Lets remove the commander tag completely and send everyone their 100g back. When ArenaNet adds in ranks in the March update we’ll have an entirely new system by which to judge a player’s experience in WvW.

Tekyn.5376:

Lets remove the commander tag completely and send everyone their 100g back. When ArenaNet adds in ranks in the March update we’ll have an entirely new system by which to judge a player’s experience in WvW.

Or at least some kind of basic grouping system for multiple groups to use that is free. (non commander).

maybe a player should be able to tag another player (and untag and switch it to someone else or be able to tag multiple players) as commander. so you can follow the player you ACCEPT as commander more easely.

that would work amazing for guilds with more than 5 members in the field but don’t want ‘randoms’ to follow them and it would allow people to go ‘hey, that guy seems to know what he’s doing, i’m going to tag him as a commander so i can follow/keep up with him’.

sounds like the simplest and most effective system i can think of.

at the moment, someone with a commander tag is more likely to be someone with more cash and ego than commander skills.

Yeah i like the voting in general.

may also want to add in the ability for people to remove their votes as well. Not down voting. more like a facebook “like”.
even remembering who voted for who. If the voter goes stale by some amount of time the vote would go away and possibly reduce the rank a person has achieved.
As unfair as they may seem to some this should be a social game. MMO.
being well known as an effective leader should be rewarded and an unliked or ineffective leader… should also have its demerits.

So bad or socially rebuked people could lose their leadership status.

I like the idea of combining the voting with action for points.

the money sink could still remain as the system could unlock things to purchase.
Way point markers
attack and defense markers.
blah blah blah
varying in cost and broadcast audience according to tier..

I also like the idea of a command weapon or flag as player dropped loot.
buy the weapon and it has some commander functions light waypoint markers and and other marking abilities but drops as loot.

but whatever i approve of voting systems.
Power to the players. less dictation.

take them all away. i cbf goin to get them all n refill just becos i need to keep up with others who take advantage of anything they can get their hands on zzz

Pretty decent idea, but here’s the problem that everyone who’s played games with map votes, knows…half the players don’t vote, and half the players who do vote, they vote stupidly for a map with no votes or the map you just played two minutes ago. The point is they don’t vote or really think about their vote. A voting system is simply not going to work except maybe on the most organized servers when most of the map pop is a few large, organized guilds.

I’d much rather see a system where guilds automatically get commander icons based on influence earned in WvW. A refund would be nice too, but good luck with that! Add in a system where commanders can say how many players they want, and you simply right click on the map icon to join squad until it’s full. Periodically the squad would reset when the commander has been out of combat for awhile to drop people no longer operating in the squad.

While adjustments to the commander system would do it some good, voting is not the answer. Voting has it place but not in this instance. Under this proposed system it would be immensely difficult for a new commander or even someone who doesn’t play all the time to lead. There is such a thing as new or less dedicated commanders doing a great job.

Voting would turn the commander system into politics. While mmos always have a minimal amount of politics, this would produce more than most people would want to have to put up with from the commanders stand point and from those who follow. At this point commander turns into a popularity contest. It would also most likely create more drama and tension between those who wish to lead in WvW.

Now I’ll give some suggestions that I feel would be better:

1.) First and foremost they need an adequate grouping system. There is no reason they can’t have a system that allows at least 20 people in a larger group. You could then put target markers on the leader or leaders of the group via the group UI. This would not show up for anyone but the group and would not require any sort of achievement or money spent. You could also add a group assist window and other key features that other mmos have that have proven very useful.
2.) Add a cosmetic rank system. This would offer not benefits outside of telling people hey I have this rank to achieve this. They had to spend a certain amount of time and meet certain goals. This would also give people something to strive for as a periodic achievement with new titles and a rank next to your name in when people click on you. As it is now there are no ranks. This would be a good indicator as to someones experience without turning it into something you HAVE to do in order to lead.
3.) Remove icons for players from the map all together. While they can be helpful sometimes. Much of the time when there is a bad commander it is more of a problem and it does not encourage organization or group play. It encourages following an icon around like a zombie never knowing map locations. When there is someone who isn’t a commander and they do a fantastic job at asking for help and relaying information the badge just draws numbers they may need elsewhere.

There shouldn’t be a REQUIREMENT to lead. By the nature of things if you are horrible at leading people will stop following. Having an icon on the map under either system causes more problems. When you recognize a leader by their name instead of an icon you get a group of players that plays better together and really knows who to listen to or should I say who they want to listen to.

Like I said above I don’t like voting for several reasons:

1.) It creates more tension.
2.) It turns it into a popularity contest.
3.) It’s an exclusive system and can be manipulated by players.
4.) It turns into politics. Don’t forget all the drama you see on mmos that happens because of political garbage.
5.) People would have status in WvW. Much like the horrible social status garbage that goes on in the real world that causes more harm than good. I would also generate more cliches and cool kid club type mentalities.

I could come up with many more reasons why voting is not a valid option, but those are some of the most important reasons. I do think the current system would benefit from change, but changing it to this proposed system IMO would be worse.

Current 100g commander are fine for pure PvE-Map only, but should not work on WvW-Maps.

Guild Commander should be introduced, build by guilds via influence and visible only to guild members.

I like the different ranks. Maybe they can be enhance by visibility range for non-squad members on the map. Also a commander should see it’s squad-members in any distance.

voting sometimes does fail and sometimes does become popularity but it also sometimes is on the money.

I believe that it would balance out. map votes generally balance out as well.
I dont like the idea of guilds getting commanders based on influence. it just makes it a bigger is better thing.
there is no in game statistic way to make a judgement on how well a person commands.

it is a personal bias. Sometimes based on results. sometimes personality. sometimes popularity. sometimes nothing.

No matter it wont change enough to make the game worth playing.

iLife the current commander system.. It’s a great gold sink and the titles don’t mater much anyway. 100 g is not much. 5 gold a night in wvw is doable

Elochai.1280:

1.) First and foremost they need an adequate grouping system. There is no reason they can’t have a system that allows at least 20 people in a larger group. You could then put target markers on the leader or leaders of the group via the group UI. This would not show up for anyone but the group and would not require any sort of achievement or money spent. You could also add a group assist window and other key features that other mmos have that have proven very useful.

Out of everything you suggested this it what I feel the most…. lack on decent multipl grouping system. This describes thge warhammer online’s “warband” system very well.

Right now I’d settle for using the commander & squad system if only guild members could see pin or have it a private squad. Sometimes you just don’t want an extra 50 people flocking to the blue pin in the middle of a guild activity.

Daylos.8640:

I ignore any blue dot I see unless it’s a commander I’ve seen produce results in the past.

Basically the same. Too many kids out there with no idea what they’re doing and arguing amongst each other. Too many bought Commander titles.

The system definitely needs changes though far beyond changing commander titles.
What l see in Gw2 is that aside from one guild l can think of on Kaineng, it is chaos. Although l quit Aion for other reasons it did have a good system in this regard.
There were 4 groups of 6 in Alliances which then joined Leagues.
Each Alliance had its leader and sub leader.
They would all be in a cmd vent/ts as well as their alliance vent/ts.
This way attacks and skirmish, recon groups could be actually co-ordinated.
Wvw in Gw2 is a shambles most of the time compared to a system like this.

Great idea. As many WvWers have probably noticed aswell: WvW doesn’t make you nearly any money, unless you’ve got full MF. In that regard, the commander title is hard to claim for people who are dedicated to WvW, so the most experienced people never get a chance to lead. I’m in for this.

If they gave people an option for multiple groups to coordinate (raid or private squad system) you wouldn’t have as many inexperienced commander pins up.

There is just no other in-game option for multiple guild groups to coordinate in without putting a commander pin up.