Guild Wars 2

In my experience the WvW commander “squad” capability is rarely used, and there are many complaints about squad functionality in the WvW forum. I think it’s for a number of reasons:

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.

Here are some ways I think the squad capability could become much more useful, many of these have already been suggested I believe:

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.

5. Commanders should have access to Commander chat that only other active commanders on the same map can see, this would help foster communication between commanders and reduce spying

Catisa.6507:

5. Commanders should have access to Commander chat that only other active commanders on the same map can see, this would help foster communication between commanders and reduce spying

I like it! Along those lines it might be neat to have a commander channel that spanned all maps. An awesome way to help facilitate commander community.

They also need to allow commanders & squads to either flag as /private or /guild only. There is no other way to group up with more than 5 people in game unless you use the commander and squad system.

Sometimes you just want to group with multiple guild groups or friends and not lead the whole zone. Often flagging the commander pin for medium size roaming groups causes confusion and at times results in people being harassed for not leading “properly”. If you made commander and squads with a private option so only the people in the squad could see their commanders…. it would reduce commander pins on the map and still allow multiple groups the flexibility to play their own way and be more organized.